"There is his crumbling facsimile of a nuclear family, his suburban orbiting of high culture, his college education preparing him for an unwanted job that didn’t await him in any case, and above all, a desperate longing for authenticity, a drive to the root of things, an escape from the world of managerialism into art for art’s sake, leavened by a sense of jaded irony and emotional distance from things that really did matter to him."
Wow. I can't believe it, but... dare I say it... he really is literally me, fr fr. This is a great primer to introduce a criminally underrated figure, and I only say that as someone who is dully aware of his importance to the Italian language and Chaucer (I studied a lot of British literature, so his name came up when we studied Chaucer, but that was about as far as it went). You've done a great job at illustrating just how influential he is, as well as painting some very vivid and impressive parallels between his time and our own. I have often thought it myself, albeit in different terms - a decadent and debased world, miserably unprepared for the catastrophe we sit on the cusp of.
I like to think of the people I read about like people I know, and I ask myself how I would describe them to a third party in terms that third party would recognize.
Chaucer is one of my favorite all-time authors; my Medieval Literature class, where we read works in the original Middle English, was one of the highlights of my years in college. I still have recourse to my Riverside Chaucer fairly often.
What do you think of the nature of evil? I was watching The Exorcist I & II last night and we got to discussing demons and the devil - and the nature of evil. Many of the evils of Boccaccio's time - the black death being paramount - we seem to have overcome with sanitation and understanding of germs and the microscopic world.
To me it seems this science - that has saved us for well over a century from Cholera, Typhus, etc. - yet always subject to perversion and bad application - is now being fully perverted to a utopian fantasy that may wreck us all. Surely the work of the devil - of manifest evil - if ever there was.
Some say the devil is the evil that men do. Or is it a force unto itself that travels here and there, lurking, waiting and finding its opportunities to wreak havoc on humanity?
I don't know that Boccaccio wrote specifically on the topic, but of course it is present in his writing. Good for Boccaccio was the fullness of God; by contrast, evil is a perversion or absence. There is a divine order in which humans are invited to participate, one perceptible through the natural order. The Plague created the conditions for evil to manifest itself, through fear and selfishness and worst of all the abandonment of hope. But nature can be twisted by those who mean to do good as well, and the further we get from that nature, the further we get from God and from good.
"and worst of all the abandonment of hope" - that is what we see today with so many embracing a flat materialism over spiritual nourishment - rejecting themselves and embracing false negative gods.
Reminds me a bit of the vibes of turn of the century Germany, with WWI instead of the plague. Except that there was no renaissance afterwards, but maybe it is yet to come? I think the Black Death is actually a good analogy to Clown World: although it's a mind plague instead of an actual plague, there is probably just as little we can do about it. As it was for Boccaccio's generation (and his protagonists), our only choice is how we react to it. But this choice is crucial.
I agree. I think he really does provide a useful model. Repopulating our civilization must necessarily coincide with repopulating our cultural inventory.
"One hesitates to call Boccaccio a Gen-Xer avant la lettre, but there are some parallels. There is his crumbling facsimile of a nuclear family, his suburban orbiting of high culture, his college education preparing him for an unwanted job that didn’t await him in any case, and above all, a desperate longing for authenticity, a drive to the root of things, an escape from the world of managerialism into art for art’s sake, leavened by a sense of jaded irony and emotional distance from things that really did matter to him."
Best GenX description I have read. And I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Don't know about Florida though..
I used to say someone would have to pay me to live in Florida. That was before DeSantis (who has been underwhelming as a pres candidate, sadly). Also, I have never actually been there, but now I'm thinking, too many people, especially New Yorkers and Californians, kek.
You should read my essay "Tropical Somnium." Florida is not as wholly populated as people think. I think DeSantis is a great governor, and will be a great future Duke of The Republic of Florida and the Gulf Coast Protectorate.
I lived in Florida for an entire week. Between the New Yorkers, Miami, and one encounter with the female co-head of the HOA, that was enough to convince us to move along. On the bright side, we made a quick 10 grand off of ownership for a week!
In Sweden, the Decameron (Dekamerone in swedish) was initially titled "Kopplarefursten".
'Kopplare' means a man facilitating business between a prostitute and a customer, i.e. a pimp. 'Furste' means any kind of noble, such as a duke or earl or baron, i.e. 'Lord'.
A translated title would then become "The Pimp-Lord" or "The Lord Pimp", the suffix -en on "Kopplarefursten" being the definite article.
More trivia: in Sweden, from the 1950s until today, it has sadly been common practice to not translate classics from their mother tongue but from english (british or american) translations. It speaks to itself why that's not a good choice, literature-wise, but it makes fiscal sense: cheaper equals more profit, and art either starves or whores to be crass about it.
To be even more vulgar, would you or anyone agree that the movie "Salò - o le 120 giornate di Sodoma" by Passolini is a modern retelling of 'Decameron'? (Note to anyone unfamilliar with the movie: it is a text-book example of disgusting, revolting gruesome images of humans at their lowest - not for children or those of weak composition; you'll want to shower and purge after seeing it, maybe literally so, so be warned.)
To me it is a retelling, but it also tells the story that re-telling is all we've become capable of since progressivism (in the sense of change for the cause of change, not modern political specifics) took up the reins from Enlightenment and turned said Enlightenment into yet another dogma.
I wonder that Swedish publishers would have recourse to English translations; are there no Italians willing to live in Stockholm, drink aquavit, and translate? I can't be that much cheaper, and anyone willing to pay for a copy of the Decameron or anything like it would presumably be willing to pay for a good one.
I think that while Boccaccio could border on the pornographic, he was never cruel, more like that earthy medieval humor one sees also in Chaucer's "Miller's Tale." There is nothing of De Sade or the like; that sort of thing is strictly post-Christian. It comes from an awareness of sin minus the fear of it, a playing against norms for the sake of self-gratification. He's more like an 80s sex comedy- in a movie like Batchelor Party there is a moral core that makes the main character relatable and redeemable. So too with the Decameron.
It's the Xerox-ing of old translations that's the root cause. At some point, for authors like Jules Verne f.e. the initial sin was committed long ago, and all subsequent edtions simply copy the previous ones without checking against the original.
Only smaller niche publishers generally endevour to get real translations, and it has sometimes caused controversy within the cultural elites when it's the "wrong" classic. The attitude is very strong among the caste of artists of all kinds, that the specially gifted must select and adapt for the plebs what works to be exposed to, for their own good.
Not to mention that there's also a very strong current of anti-intellectualism running through our riche nouveau upper class (not the old nobility though!), where reading anything more advaced or challenging than either modern era crime novels or biographies of celebrities or cookbooks is sneered and jeered at.
Former PM Fredrik Reinfeldt even bragged - in public on record - about never reading books.
Probably due to that background, why I connect Decameron and Salò.
I would love the chance to hang out with old school old nobility. I would bet a single castle's library would have treasures that would engage the minds of young Swedes more than the entire output of the current crop of writers.
Brilliant and inspiring as always. You, sir, are much appreciated for the effort and approach towards your medium. I have loved the written word for as long as I can remember - a lover of Shakespeare placed in a home that loved The National Enquirer. People such as yourself are an oasis in a very very dry desert. I truly hope I get to meet you in person someday and thank you for the worlds in literature which you have opened to me. ❤️
I read The Decameron in an Italian literature class in college and loved it. So many of the stories were hilarious. It was one of the books that I never sold back when the semester ended! I never looked into his other works but I will now. Thank you for this essay, I haven't thought of Boccaccio in a long time but I'm glad to be reacquainted with him.
The more you read the more you realize you haven’t read. Just imagine how I feel reading about the education Boccaccio got, or how he must have felt living with Dante’s example. Remember, however much more someone else has read, you and that person still have about the same number of books left to read, and a finite number of years to do so. Do what you can, as you are moved to do so.
I don’t yet read Italian well enough to read Boccaccio in the original. However, I’m told that readers of modern Italian have little trouble with the Florentines of the Middle Ages due to their dialect being the basis for the contemporary standard language. So if you are able to read Modern Italian you should be well ahead of things.
T.S. Eliot wrote an essay about how surprisingly easy it was for a modern to read Dante's Italian, and that's probably true of Boccacio as well. A great book you might enjoy called "Clear and Simple as the Truth" makes the point that 17th century French was the acme of French prose and French prose never really evolved--maintaining the same elegance and purity--so reading Montaigne and Racine is not difficult. English is a strange beast of a language.
"There is his crumbling facsimile of a nuclear family, his suburban orbiting of high culture, his college education preparing him for an unwanted job that didn’t await him in any case, and above all, a desperate longing for authenticity, a drive to the root of things, an escape from the world of managerialism into art for art’s sake, leavened by a sense of jaded irony and emotional distance from things that really did matter to him."
Wow. I can't believe it, but... dare I say it... he really is literally me, fr fr. This is a great primer to introduce a criminally underrated figure, and I only say that as someone who is dully aware of his importance to the Italian language and Chaucer (I studied a lot of British literature, so his name came up when we studied Chaucer, but that was about as far as it went). You've done a great job at illustrating just how influential he is, as well as painting some very vivid and impressive parallels between his time and our own. I have often thought it myself, albeit in different terms - a decadent and debased world, miserably unprepared for the catastrophe we sit on the cusp of.
I like to think of the people I read about like people I know, and I ask myself how I would describe them to a third party in terms that third party would recognize.
Chaucer is one of my favorite all-time authors; my Medieval Literature class, where we read works in the original Middle English, was one of the highlights of my years in college. I still have recourse to my Riverside Chaucer fairly often.
What do you think of the nature of evil? I was watching The Exorcist I & II last night and we got to discussing demons and the devil - and the nature of evil. Many of the evils of Boccaccio's time - the black death being paramount - we seem to have overcome with sanitation and understanding of germs and the microscopic world.
To me it seems this science - that has saved us for well over a century from Cholera, Typhus, etc. - yet always subject to perversion and bad application - is now being fully perverted to a utopian fantasy that may wreck us all. Surely the work of the devil - of manifest evil - if ever there was.
Some say the devil is the evil that men do. Or is it a force unto itself that travels here and there, lurking, waiting and finding its opportunities to wreak havoc on humanity?
What do scholars like Boccaccio say?
I don't know that Boccaccio wrote specifically on the topic, but of course it is present in his writing. Good for Boccaccio was the fullness of God; by contrast, evil is a perversion or absence. There is a divine order in which humans are invited to participate, one perceptible through the natural order. The Plague created the conditions for evil to manifest itself, through fear and selfishness and worst of all the abandonment of hope. But nature can be twisted by those who mean to do good as well, and the further we get from that nature, the further we get from God and from good.
"and worst of all the abandonment of hope" - that is what we see today with so many embracing a flat materialism over spiritual nourishment - rejecting themselves and embracing false negative gods.
Reminds me a bit of the vibes of turn of the century Germany, with WWI instead of the plague. Except that there was no renaissance afterwards, but maybe it is yet to come? I think the Black Death is actually a good analogy to Clown World: although it's a mind plague instead of an actual plague, there is probably just as little we can do about it. As it was for Boccaccio's generation (and his protagonists), our only choice is how we react to it. But this choice is crucial.
I agree. I think he really does provide a useful model. Repopulating our civilization must necessarily coincide with repopulating our cultural inventory.
"One hesitates to call Boccaccio a Gen-Xer avant la lettre, but there are some parallels. There is his crumbling facsimile of a nuclear family, his suburban orbiting of high culture, his college education preparing him for an unwanted job that didn’t await him in any case, and above all, a desperate longing for authenticity, a drive to the root of things, an escape from the world of managerialism into art for art’s sake, leavened by a sense of jaded irony and emotional distance from things that really did matter to him."
Best GenX description I have read. And I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Don't know about Florida though..
Florida excelsior eterna!
I used to say someone would have to pay me to live in Florida. That was before DeSantis (who has been underwhelming as a pres candidate, sadly). Also, I have never actually been there, but now I'm thinking, too many people, especially New Yorkers and Californians, kek.
You should read my essay "Tropical Somnium." Florida is not as wholly populated as people think. I think DeSantis is a great governor, and will be a great future Duke of The Republic of Florida and the Gulf Coast Protectorate.
Also, I just mentioned you in my latest post...
I lived in Florida for an entire week. Between the New Yorkers, Miami, and one encounter with the female co-head of the HOA, that was enough to convince us to move along. On the bright side, we made a quick 10 grand off of ownership for a week!
Trivia, for enjoyment or abhorrence:
In Sweden, the Decameron (Dekamerone in swedish) was initially titled "Kopplarefursten".
'Kopplare' means a man facilitating business between a prostitute and a customer, i.e. a pimp. 'Furste' means any kind of noble, such as a duke or earl or baron, i.e. 'Lord'.
A translated title would then become "The Pimp-Lord" or "The Lord Pimp", the suffix -en on "Kopplarefursten" being the definite article.
More trivia: in Sweden, from the 1950s until today, it has sadly been common practice to not translate classics from their mother tongue but from english (british or american) translations. It speaks to itself why that's not a good choice, literature-wise, but it makes fiscal sense: cheaper equals more profit, and art either starves or whores to be crass about it.
To be even more vulgar, would you or anyone agree that the movie "Salò - o le 120 giornate di Sodoma" by Passolini is a modern retelling of 'Decameron'? (Note to anyone unfamilliar with the movie: it is a text-book example of disgusting, revolting gruesome images of humans at their lowest - not for children or those of weak composition; you'll want to shower and purge after seeing it, maybe literally so, so be warned.)
To me it is a retelling, but it also tells the story that re-telling is all we've become capable of since progressivism (in the sense of change for the cause of change, not modern political specifics) took up the reins from Enlightenment and turned said Enlightenment into yet another dogma.
I wonder that Swedish publishers would have recourse to English translations; are there no Italians willing to live in Stockholm, drink aquavit, and translate? I can't be that much cheaper, and anyone willing to pay for a copy of the Decameron or anything like it would presumably be willing to pay for a good one.
I think that while Boccaccio could border on the pornographic, he was never cruel, more like that earthy medieval humor one sees also in Chaucer's "Miller's Tale." There is nothing of De Sade or the like; that sort of thing is strictly post-Christian. It comes from an awareness of sin minus the fear of it, a playing against norms for the sake of self-gratification. He's more like an 80s sex comedy- in a movie like Batchelor Party there is a moral core that makes the main character relatable and redeemable. So too with the Decameron.
It's the Xerox-ing of old translations that's the root cause. At some point, for authors like Jules Verne f.e. the initial sin was committed long ago, and all subsequent edtions simply copy the previous ones without checking against the original.
Only smaller niche publishers generally endevour to get real translations, and it has sometimes caused controversy within the cultural elites when it's the "wrong" classic. The attitude is very strong among the caste of artists of all kinds, that the specially gifted must select and adapt for the plebs what works to be exposed to, for their own good.
Not to mention that there's also a very strong current of anti-intellectualism running through our riche nouveau upper class (not the old nobility though!), where reading anything more advaced or challenging than either modern era crime novels or biographies of celebrities or cookbooks is sneered and jeered at.
Former PM Fredrik Reinfeldt even bragged - in public on record - about never reading books.
Probably due to that background, why I connect Decameron and Salò.
I would love the chance to hang out with old school old nobility. I would bet a single castle's library would have treasures that would engage the minds of young Swedes more than the entire output of the current crop of writers.
Brilliant and inspiring as always. You, sir, are much appreciated for the effort and approach towards your medium. I have loved the written word for as long as I can remember - a lover of Shakespeare placed in a home that loved The National Enquirer. People such as yourself are an oasis in a very very dry desert. I truly hope I get to meet you in person someday and thank you for the worlds in literature which you have opened to me. ❤️
Liked, a thousand times liked...would that I could liked a thousand times more!
Florida = New Rome meme is too funny. Music from Rome TWBI is perfection there (one of only a handful of games I've ever played with interest).
I read The Decameron in an Italian literature class in college and loved it. So many of the stories were hilarious. It was one of the books that I never sold back when the semester ended! I never looked into his other works but I will now. Thank you for this essay, I haven't thought of Boccaccio in a long time but I'm glad to be reacquainted with him.
"he was like Batman in the Justice League, a superior man in a conclave of demigods, unable to come into his own by comparison." Classic.
Bravo, maestro. Your work is a benediction.
What a great introduction to a name I barely knew. Also a reminder to read Plutarch. Thank you.
Yes, definitely read Plutarch as well, and also Petrarch. They are all great.
Slinks off into corner .... 😞
Yes, because I have read little of either of them. I'm wishing for a second childhood so i can attend Hillsdale and study the classics properly.
The more you read the more you realize you haven’t read. Just imagine how I feel reading about the education Boccaccio got, or how he must have felt living with Dante’s example. Remember, however much more someone else has read, you and that person still have about the same number of books left to read, and a finite number of years to do so. Do what you can, as you are moved to do so.
"Of the making of books there is no end." Not a new phenomenon.
I appreciate those readers who are also writers and can provide cogent reviews of great books. Thanks.
Lol
If I'm a good writer, it's only because I read works by people like Boccaccio.
I don’t yet read Italian well enough to read Boccaccio in the original. However, I’m told that readers of modern Italian have little trouble with the Florentines of the Middle Ages due to their dialect being the basis for the contemporary standard language. So if you are able to read Modern Italian you should be well ahead of things.
T.S. Eliot wrote an essay about how surprisingly easy it was for a modern to read Dante's Italian, and that's probably true of Boccacio as well. A great book you might enjoy called "Clear and Simple as the Truth" makes the point that 17th century French was the acme of French prose and French prose never really evolved--maintaining the same elegance and purity--so reading Montaigne and Racine is not difficult. English is a strange beast of a language.