Decameron (edited)

By luigi_pagano

Mon, 30 Dec 2019
  • 950 reads
4 comments
 
 
Giovanni Boccaccio wrote the Decameron
with tales describing all sorts of goings-on.
Written in vernacular but not with rhyme
it provides a document of life at the time.
 
The young protagonists, who totalled ten,
seven pretty women and three bonny men,
were ensconced in a villa outside Florence
to keep themselves safe from the pestilence.
 
They stayed there for ten days and told tales
either erotic or tragic, in the greatest details.
Each person, each day, would tell a story,
with plots that were lurid or else too gory.
 
Ten yarns a day for ten interminable days,
a hundred pieces of prose that amaze.
This narrative inspired Geoffrey Chaucer
who penned a book probably saucier.
 
© Luigi Pagano 2019

 

Certificate PG
Poem
Mutevoli pensieri
Historical Fiction
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Another interesting poem Luigi! I remember the name from doing Chaucer at school, but knew nothing about his writing. Were some  Shakespeare plays  inspired by him too?

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

Hello Di, 
another bit of (useless) information about Boccaccio is that his name is a derivation of 'big mouth'.
He, together with Dante and Petrarch, was a great influence on the Renaissance.
As I mentioned, Chaucer was inspired by the Decameron for the Canterbury Tales but also by Boccaccio's "Teseida" on which Chaucer's  "The Knight's Tale" and Shakespeare's "The Two Noble Kinsmen" are based.
The Bard's play "All's Well That Ends Well" has its origins in the "Decamerone".

Glad you found my resumé interesting.

Luigi x

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

wow Luigi, you are so full of fascinating information!

 

Submitted by luigi_pagano on

I am simply fascinated by facts, which I dig from time to time and store for future references. Di. 

Luigi x