Introduction

Summary

This critical study places Giovanni Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century story-collection in the context of the wide array of didactic narrative traditions that his tales are largely based on and frequently parody, including Aesopic fables, framed narrative collections of Islamicate origin, medieval compilations of sermon stories and of saints’ lives, and classical anthologies of historical anecdotes. In Boccaccio’s revisions, the inherited stories suggest very different ethical paradigms (more skeptical, more tolerant of natural impulses) than in earlier contexts. The book examines Boccaccio’s texts not only in relation to both premodern notions of literary exemplarity, but also to recent critical claims about narrative’s ability to promote empathy and emotional intelligence. Boccaccio asserts in the Decameron’s Preface that his tales provide readers with useful advice by showing the consequences of human behavior, but the very plethora of different teachings and variant outcomes that are proposed undermines the assumption that a specific narrative lesson can ever be universally applied.