Teseida: The triumph of amorous discourse

With his Teseida Boccaccio intended to emulate the Latin  epos through the classical models of Virgil and Stazio, even though it would seem that one of the works he most exploited appears to have been the Byzantine Digenis Akritas. However, the amorous element has a decidedly dominant role in the story told. Two distinct narrative elements seem almost to coexist within this poem: on the one hand the epic element, incarnated in Theseus’ deeds, the king who is “just” and magnanimous; on the other the erotic element, expressed in the adventures that befall Arcita and Palemone. It is as if the story, which begins with the  deeds of the Duke of Athens, at a certain point turns toward themes more suited to Boccaccio’s leanings, recovering, with the description of the loves for Emilia, a connotation that brings it close to courtly romance. This change of intent in the course of the work is sealed by the final sequence, with the tournament for the conquest of the beloved, an exquisitely chivalrous insertion. And it can be deemed legitimate to find in the final sonnet of the poem an “author’s” confirmation, where the title assigned to the work is “Teseida di nozze d’Emilia” (story of Emilia’s marriage) and, therefore, the interest for Theseus’ epics  is evidently counterbalanced by the importance given to the young girl’s loves. The poem is dedicated to Fiammetta with a dedicatory letter, followed by a rubric-sonnet, that describes the content of the work; similar sonnets giving information on the contents are to be found at the beginning of each book.

The taste for contamination and amplificatio, rhetorical techniques dear to Boccaccio, emerge above all in the allegorical digressions. It is suggested that behind the description of the house of Mars and that of Venus’ abode (Teseida: VII[1]) there was a piece by Stazio for the first and, probably, the recovery of the Epithalamium de nuptiis Honoris Augusti by Claudianus, for the second. In Boccaccio’s poem these descriptive parentheses are loaded with allusive connotations, acquiring an allegorical value unknown to the original models, which suggests that certain stimuli were in effect inspired by the Roman de la Rose.

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[1]Teseida delle nozze di Emilia, ed. A. Limentani, in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio. Ed. V. Branca, vol. 2, Milan 1964, pp. 444-499.