The present edition of selections from Boccaccio's Decameron contains new translations of twenty-one tales, including representative novelle from each of the ten days of storytelling, as well as the Author's Introduction, the Prologue to the Fourth Day, and the Author's Conclusion, all in their entirety. The selection represents,we feel, the most important tales Boccaccio wrote, viewed from the standpoint of literary history and subsequent influence upon other European writers. In addition, these stories represent, in our opinion, the most interesting and innovative of the author's themes and arc most representative of his narrative techniques. Any abridged translation of The Decameron which does not present all of Boccaccio's one hundred novelle cannot, of necessity, also include all the comments of the storytellers, since they often run from the end of one tale into the beginning of the next. ...

This volume contains twenty-one of the hundred novelle that comprise Boccaccio’s masterpiece. The stories have been chosen to represent the most notable of the author’s themes and the most characteristic and influential examples of his narrative technique. All are in new translations by Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella which successfully capture Boccaccio’s variations in diction and sentence structure.

"Contemporary Reactions" includes Petrarch’s letters to Boccaccio after completion of The Decameron and the responses of such Italian Renaissance figures as Leonardo Bruni, Filippo Villani, Giannozzo Manetti, and Ludovico Dolce, all of which have been translated for this edition.

"Modern Criticism" includes interpretations by Ugo Foscolo, Francesco De Sanctis, Erich Auerbach, Aldo D. Scaglione, Wayne Booth, Tzvetan Todorov, Robert J. Clements, and Marga Cottino-Jones.

Thomas G. Bergin’s important historical overview is published here for the first time, while Ben Lawton’s study of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s filming of The Decameron and a general essay by the editors were written specially for this volume.

Preface

The Text of The Decameron

Translator’s Note

　The Structure of The Decameron

　Contents of The Decameron

　The Author’s Preface

　The Author’s Introduction

　The Decameron

Contemporary and Modern Criticism

　Thomas G. Bergin - An Introduction to Boccaccio

CONTEMPORARY REACTIONS

　Franceesco Petrarca - [Encouragements to Boccaccio, Who Has Been Terrified by a 　Fanatic into Renouncing Literature]

　Francesco Petrarca - [Reproof of Boccaccio for Threatening to Burn His Poems; and a Diatribe Against Contemporary Ignoramuses]

　Francesco Petrarca - [On Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Story of Griselda]

Leonard Bruni - Note on Boccaccio

　Filippo Villani - [The Life of Giovanni Boccaccio]

　Giannozzo Manetti - [The Life of Giovanni Boccaccio]

　Ludovico Dolce - The Life of Messer Giovanni Boccaccio Described

Modern Criticism

　Ugo Foscolo - Boccaccio

　Francesco de Sanctis - [Boccaccio and the Human Comedy]

　Aldo D. Scaglione - [Nature and Love in Boccaccio’s Decameron]

　Wayne Booth - [Telling and Showing in Boccaccio’s Decameron]

　Tztetan Todorov - Structural Analysis of Narrative

　Robert J. Clements - Anatomy of the Novella

　Erich Auerbach - Frate Alberto

　Marga Cottino-Jones - Fabula vs. Figura: Another Interpretation of the Griselda Story

　Ben Lawton - Boccaccio and Pasolini - A Contemporary Reinterpretation of The Decameron

　Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella - The Meaning of The Decameron

Selected Bibliography