Decameron

Introduction to day IV; author’s conclusions

A characteristic trait of the narrative of the Decameron is the way the author is made to be less present as compared to Dante’s works and Petrarch’s. Where Dante is author/actor in the Divine Comedy and Petrarch is the undisputed protagonist  of the Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, Boccaccio, decuplicating the narrative voice thanks to the invention of the circle of storytellers, tends to eclipse his presence within the text. In the introduction to day IV, in order to defend himself from the criticism of detractors, centred principally upon the author’s lasciviousness, Boccaccio chooses to answer with an apologue, the celebrated short novella on ducks. Leaving the field to Filippo Balducci and his son, who demonstrate the ineluctability of the power of nature and the indisputability of female attraction, personal polemic takes a concrete form and, where the target was the author, the retort comes from the text.

Countering new “accusations” from readers, Boccaccio responds to the accusation of lasciviousness, making his own the principle of the need to adapt to the content narrated (“la qualità delle novelle l’hanno richiesta”, Decameron: author’s conclusions, 4[1]). The fact that he is not himself the narrator, a narrative strategy that Boccaccio sticks to throughout, leads to the admission that he is only  a faithful chronicler, committed to accurate but impartial report, and thus untainted by either immoral contaminations or preoccupations of an aesthetic nature:

Saranno similmente di quelle che diranno qui esserne alcune che, non essendoci, sarebbe stato assai meglio. Concedasi: ma io non pote' né doveva scrivere se non le raccontate, e per ciò esse che le dissero le dovevan dir belle e io l'avrei scritte belle (Decameron: author’s conclusions, 16[2])

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[1]Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, ed. V. Branca, Turin 1999, vol. II, p. 1255.

[2]Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, ed. V. Branca, Turin 1999, vol. II, p. 1258.