Boccaccio and the Consolation of Literature

Abstract

manage and produce social and moral order, examining the extent to which rhetorical strategies and fiction can preserve this order and avoid danger. Grace Delmolino’s essay examines the gendered dynamics of IX, 7. She presents a non-misogynist reading of the tale and argues that the tale leads us to understand that the agency of all parties and the avoidance of both tyranny and servitude is essential in the foundation of social order. Johnny L. Bertolio examines IX, 8 beyond the apparent comic fiction, as a depiction of civic, moral, and bodily disorder through his reading of the tale in parallel both with Dante’s Inferno and the biblical metaphor of ‘wine of wrath’. Albert Russell Ascoli’s article on the ninth tale examines the figure of Solomon in contrast with the tale’s narrator Emilia. Situating the tale within the microtext, he argues that this understudied tale is an overlooked and essential point of consideration in the critical trend of examining Emilia. In his view, Emilia represents an interpretive and political contradiction in her simultaneous power and defence of the misogyny that challenges that power; as such, she is shown to be central to Boccaccio’s investigation of governance in the Decameron. The final essay in the volume, penned by Max Matukhin, presents a close reading of IX, 10 and an intertextual study of its various antecedents. Matukhin’s investigation reveals that Dioneo subverts the medieval understanding that sodomy was a practice of the upper class and intellectuals as a result of excessive learning, by having a rural Puglian priest demonstrate a corrective to a sodomy born of ignorance. This collection of thought-provoking essays on the ninth day of the Decameron makes a significant contribution to existing critical literature, through the continuation of the Lectura’s project of ensuring neglected tales, and indeed a neglected day, are brought centre stage. The volume offers a renewed perspective of the ninth day as a diverse and yet cohesive collection of tales and provides an insightful investigation of the role of the ninth day in the macrotext, through both the perceptive contributions regarding the individual novelle and the innovative addition of the highly productive introductory essay by the volume’s editors.