The Decameron

The stories have been chosen to represent the most notable of the authors themes and the most characteristic and influential examples of his narrative technique. All are in new translations by Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella which successfully capture Boccaccios variations in diction and sentence structure."Contemporary Reactions" includes Petrarchs letters to Boccaccio after completion of The Decameron and the responses of such Italian Renaissance figures as Leonardo Bruni, Filippo Villani, Giannozzo Manetti, and Ludovico Dolce, all of which have been translated for this edition."Modern Criticism" includes interpretations by Ugo Foscolo, Francesco De Sanctis, Erich Auerbach, Aldo D. Scaglione, Wayne Booth, Tzvetan Todorov, Robert J. Clements, and Marga Cottino-Jones.Thomas G. Bergins important historical overview is published here for the first time, while Ben Lawtons study of Pier Paolo Pasolinis filming of The Decameron and a general essay by the editors were written specially for this volume.