Decameron : collection of a hundred tales by Boccaccio (q.v.) reflecting not only the eternal foolishness of man but also fascinating details of Italian life of his time. The setting of the tales is as follows: Florence being visited by the Plague in 1348, seven women & three men leave the city for neighbouring villas. As part of their revels, they tell stories until the epidemic abates. This they do for ten days, hence the title “Decameron” or “Ten Days” Work”. Each person tells one story each day, & so there are 100 tales in all. The work proved to be the fountainhead of Italian literary prose for succeeding centuries.
... put the French word for it, not the English. Take the Decameron . In the English translation there are so many things in French. SRI AUROBINDO: I am reminded of Gibbon. Whenever he wanted to quote anything which might offend the current taste, he used its Latin form. But in English there are more outspoken things than in Boccaccio's Decameron . Many English novels deal with erotic, even vulgar, ...
... We have the picture of an age, not the spiritual and mental history of a nation. Such a period of partial self-revelation we find in the flowering of Italian literature; in the Divine Comedy, the Decameron, the works of Petrarch, Machiavelli, Cellini, Castiglione, mediaeval Italy lives before our eyes for all time; but the rest of Italian prose and poetry is mere literature and nothing more. Again when ...
