Boccaccio and Exemplary Literature
Summary
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Boccaccio and Exemplary Literature by Olivia Holmes
This is the first monograph to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the Decameron's response to classical and medieval didactic traditions. Olivia Holmes unearths the rich variety of Boccaccio's sources, ranging across Aesopic fables, narrative collections of Islamicate origin, sermon-stories and saints' lives, and compilations of historical anecdotes. Examining the Decameron's sceptical and sexually permissive contents in relation to medieval notions of narrative exemplarity, the study also considers how they intersect with current critical assertions of fiction's power to develop empathy and emotional intelligence. Holmes argues that Boccaccio provides readers with the opportunity to exercise both what the ancients called 'Ethics,' and our contemporaries call 'Theory of Mind.' This account of a vast tradition of tale collections and its provocative analysis of their workings will appeal to scholars of Italian literature and medieval studies, as well as to readers interested in evolutionary understandings of storytelling.
'Written in a lucid and eloquent style, the study is a product of a career of profound thinking about both the vast literary context of Boccaccio's vernacular masterpiece and the novellas themselves… Holmes's book is a pathbreaking and major contribution to Boccaccio studies.' Brenda Deen Schildgen, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies
'The book's main strengths lie in El-Hibri's facility with the narrative material and the thematic topics he chooses to address. That he has spent a career teaching and researching Abbasid history and historiography is evident, and there are numerous thought-provoking observations and asides that reflect this knowledge and experience.' Andrew Marsham, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies
'Boccaccio and Exemplary Literature a very welcome addition to the study of Boccaccio and popular literature of his times. It is a rich and well-informed book that brings to the forefront the (still necessary) field of exemplary literature and its many different expressions.' Mario Sassi, Heliotropia
'The book's main strengths lie in El-Hibri's facility with the narrative material and the thematic topics he chooses to address. That he has spent a career teaching and researching Abbasid history and historiography is evident, and there are numerous thought-provoking observations and asides that reflect this knowledge and experience.' Andrew Marsham, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies
'Boccaccio and Exemplary Literature a very welcome addition to the study of Boccaccio and popular literature of his times. It is a rich and well-informed book that brings to the forefront the (still necessary) field of exemplary literature and its many different expressions.' Mario Sassi, Heliotropia
Olivia Holmes teaches Medieval Studies at Binghamton University. She has authored two previous monographs: Assembling the Lyric Self: Authorship from Troubadour Song to Italian Poetry Book (2000), which won the American Association of Italian Studies Book Award, and Dante's Two Beloveds: Ethics and Erotics in the Divine Comedy (2008).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781009224338 |
| ISBN 10 | 1009224336 |
| Title | Boccaccio and Exemplary Literature |
| Author | Olivia Holmes |
| Series | Cambridge Studies In Medieval Literature |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 2023-02-09 |
| Number of pages | 300 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |