Boccaccio: Decameron (Landmarks of World Literature)

In Boccaccio's innovative text, ten young people leave Florence to escape the Black Death of 1348, and organize their collective life in the countryside through the pleasure and discipline of story-telling. David Wallace guides the reader through their one hundred novelle, which explore both new and familiar conflicts from private and public spheres of life with unprecedented subtlety, urgency and humour. He emphasises the relationship between Decameron and the precocious vitality of Florentine culture in Boccaccio's time. He also discusses gender issues and the influence of the text particularly on Chaucer and the novel.David J. Wallace is the author of 'Boccaccio: Decameron (Landmarks of World Literature)', published 1991 under ISBN 9780521381826 and ISBN 0521381827.