Pandemic fiction as therapeutic play: The New York Times Magazine’s The Decameron Project (2020)

This article explores the therapeutic potential of narrative fiction during a global health crisis. We focus on The Decameron Project (2020), a collection of short fiction by writers from around the world, commissioned by the New York Times Magazine. The Decameron Project references the narrative framework established by Giovanni Boccaccio in the mid-14th century, when the Black Death devastated Europe. Drawing on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and principles of bibliotherapy employed since the Middle Ages, we argue that The Decameron Project offers strategies to simultaneously confront and contain the anxious mind. Storytelling, according to both Boccaccio and to the editors of The Decameron Project, is not merely a source of distraction but a means of survival.

Considerações sobre a axiologia donna x femmina para orientar uma tradução brasileira de Boccaccio

RESUMO: Delle donne famose, de Donato Albanzani, é um dos vulgarizamentos da coletânea de biografias femininas escrita por Giovanni Boccaccio na década de 1360. Um projeto de tradução desse vulgarizamento levanta a questão sobre a pertinência de se traduzir por "fêmea" o femmina adotado na obra (que se alterna com o uso de donna), já que os sentidos negativos do termo, no italiano do século XIV, eram distintos e menos depreciativos que do que aqueles do correspondente em português. Para examinar tal pertinência, observou-se as ocorrências de donna e femmina no texto do livro com base em três situações: diferenciação por classe de palavras, semantismo dos termos e de seus predicados, e contexto das ocorrências. A análise revela a constituição de axiologias que homologam a oposição natureza x cultura, com femmina em posição disfórica associada à "natureza". Como as acepções depreciativas de "fêmea" se fundam na projeção de aspectos "animalizados" na mulher, pretensamente oriundos de um estágio pré-cultural e humano, o termo pode ser considerado pertinente para traduzir o femmina e evocar os sentidos que ajuda a produzir no texto italiano.Palavras-chave: Literatura italiana medieval. De mulieribus claris. Axiologia do feminino. Mulher x fêmea. Tradução. ABSTRACT: Delle donne famose, di Donato Albanzani, è una delle volgarizzazioni della raccolta di biografie femminili scritta da Giovanni Boccaccio negli anni Sessanta del Trecento. Un progetto di traduzione al portoghese brasiliano di questa volgarizzazione mette in rilievo la questione della pertinenza di si tradurre come fêmea la parola "femmina" (adoperata in alternanza alla parola donna), poiché i significati negativi del termine, nell’italiano del XIV secolo, erano distinti e meno denigratori di quelli del corrispondente portoghese. Per esaminare tale pertinenza, si ha osservato le occorrenze delle parole "donna" e "femmina" nel testo del libro sulla base di tre situazioni: la differenziazione per classe di parole, la semantica dei termini e dei loro predicati e il contesto delle occorrenze. L’analisi rivela la costituzione di assiologie che sanciscono l’opposizione natura x cultura, con il termine "femmina" in una posizione disforica associata alla "natura". Poiché i significati dispregiativi di fêmea si basano sulla proiezione di aspetti "animalizzati" nelle donne, presumibilmente da una fase pre-culturale e umana, il termine può essere considerato pertinente per tradurre la parola "femmina" e per evocare i sensi che questa aiuta a produrre nel testo italiano.Parole chiave: Letteratura italiana del medioevo. De mulieribus claris. Assiologia del femminile. Donna x femmina. Traduzione. ABSTRACT: Donato Albanzani’s Delle donne famose is one of the Italian translations of the collection of female biographies written by Giovanni Boccaccio in the 1360s. A Brazilian translation project of this work rises the question if it would be pertinent to use the Portuguese word fêmea for the Italian femmina (which appears alternately with donna to referes to women), since the negative meanings of the term, in 14th century Italian, were distinct and less disparaging than those of its Portuguese correspondent. To examine such pertinence, we observe in the text of the book the occurrences of donna and femmina based on three situations: differentiation by class of words, semanticism of terms and their predicates, and context of occurrences. The analysis reveals the constitution of axiologies that ratify the nature x culture opposition, with femmina in a dysphoric position associated with "nature". As the derogatory meanings of fêmea are based on the projection of "animalized" aspects in women, supposedly from a pre-cultural and human stage, the term can be considered relevant to translate the word femmina and to evoke the senses that it helps to produce in the Italian text.Keywords: Medieval Italian literature. De mulieribus claris. Axiology of the feminine. Woman x female. Translation.

Plague and Literature in Western Europe, from Giovanni Boccaccio to Albert Camus

In medieval times the plague hit Europe between 1330 and 1350. The Italian novelist Giovanni Boccaccio, one of the exponents of the cultural movement of Humanism, in the introduction (proem) of his “Decameron” described the devastating effects of the ‘black plague’ on the inhabitants of the city of Florence. The pestilence returned to Western Europe in several waves, between the 16th and 17th centuries. William Shakespeare in “Romeo and Juliet” and other tragedies, and Ben Jonson in “The Alchemist” made several references to the plague, but they did not offer any realistic description of that infective disease. Some decennials later Daniel Defoe, in his “A Journal of the Plague Year” (1719), gave a detailed report about the ‘Great Plague’ which hit England in 1660, based on documents of the epoch. In more recent times, Thomas S. Eliot, composing his poem “The Waste Land” was undoubtedly influenced by the spreading of another infective disease, the so-called “Spanish flu”, which affected him and his wife in December 1918. Some decennials later, the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, in his novel “The Plague”, symbolized with a plague epidemic the war which devastated Europe, North Africa and the Far East from 1937 to 1945, extolling a death toll of over 50 million victims. Those literary works offered a sort of solace to the lovers of literature. To recall them is the purpose of the present paper, in these years afflicted by the spreading of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

The “accountant” stereotype in the Florentine medieval popular culture: “galantuomini” or usurers?

PurposeThis paper explores the stereotype of the accountant in Florentine medieval popular culture based on literary works and from a historical perspective. It aims to highlight how stereotypes change with time and represent the cultural and historical evolution of a society. This research challenges Miley and Read (2012), who stated that the foundation of the stereotype was in Commedia dell'arte, an Italian form of improvisational theatre commenced in the 15th century.Design/methodology/approachThe authors applied a qualitative research method to examine the accountant from a medieval popular culture perspective. The analysis consists of two phases: (1) categorisation of the accountant stereotype based on accounting history literature and (2) thematic analysis of The Divine Comedy (1307–1313) and The Decameron (1348–1351). The authors explored a synchronic perspective of historical investigation through a “cross-author” comparison, identifying Dante Alighieri as the first key author of medieval popular culture. During his imaginary journey through The Divine Comedy, Dante describes the social, political and economic context of the Florentine people of the 14th century. Then, with its various folkloristic elements, The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio becomes the “manifesto” of the popular culture in the Florentine medieval times.FindingsThis study shows the change of the accountant stereotype from the medieval age to the Renaissance. The Divine Comedy mainly connotes a negative accountant stereotype. The 14th century's Florentine gentlemen (“i galantuomini”) are apparently positive characters, with an ordered and clean aspect, but they are accused of being usurers. Dante Alighieri pictures the accountant as a “servant of capitalism”, “dishonest person, excessively fixated with money”, “villain and evil” and “excessively rational”. Giovanni Boccaccio mainly portrays a positive accountant stereotype. The accountant is increasingly more reliable, and this “commercial man” takes a more prestigious role in the society. In The Decameron, the accountant is depicted as a “hero”, “gentleman”, “family-oriented person with a high level of work commitment” and “colourful persona, warm, and emotional”. Overall, the authors provided new evidence on the existence of the accountant stereotype in the Florentine medieval popular.Originality/valueThis study engages with accounting history literature accountants' stereotypes in an unexplored context and time period, providing a base for comparative international research on accounting stereotypes and popular culture. Additionally, it addresses the need for further research on the accountant stereotype based on literary works and from a historical perspective. Therefore, this research also expands the New Accounting History (NAH) literature, focussing on the investigation of the accountant stereotype connotations in the 14th century.

Mítosz és egzegézis

Giovanni Boccaccio mind a hazai, mind a nemzetközi kutatások látóterében elsősorban a Dekameron szerzőjeként van jelen. Azonban életművének kiemelkedő alkotásai közé tartoznak latin nyelvű prózai munkái is, amelyekre a kutatók jellemzően nem fordítanak jelentőségéhez méltó figyelmet. Doktori disszertációm fő célja tehát, hogy a görög-római mitológia öt istennőjének a Genealogia deorum gentiliumban és a De mulieribus clarisban egyaránt szereplő leírásainak komparatív vizsgálatával ráirányítsam a figyelmet a boccacciói latin próza alkotásaira. Az értekezés két nagy egységre tagolódik. Az első részben célkitűzésem – a szakirodalomra támaszkodva, ám a meglévők mellé új szempontokat is beemelve – átfogó összefoglalását adni a két elemzett műnek, kiemelt figyelmet fordítva azok egyedi jegyeire is. Az értekezés első felében – mintegy elméleti hátteret biztosítva a későbbi elemzésnek – az egyes művek általános jellemzőin túl vizsgálom azok forrásait, valamint a megírásuk során alkalmazott munkamódszereket, narrációs technikákat is. A második egységet a mindkét munkában szereplő istennők leírásainak vizsgálata alkotja, amelyre valamennyiük többszempontú vizsgálata során önálló alfejezetben kerül sor. A dolgozat központi részét képező komparatív vizsgálat az alapján tagolható két egységre, hogy a vizsgált istennők a Genealogiában egy vagy több alkalommal címadó szereplői-e a fejezeteknek. Az első csoportban így Ops és Iuno kaptak helyet, akiknek egy-egy leírása olvasható mind a Genealogia, mind a De mulieribus soraiban. A második csoportba Ceres, Minerva és Venus kerültek, akiknek több Genealogia-beli megjelenését szintetizálja Boccaccio a De mulieribus egy-egy fejezetében. Az elemzés minden esetben a Genealogiából indul ki, kiemelten kezelve a források és a narrációs technikák kérdését, majd azt vizsgálja, hogyan kerül át mindez a De mulieribus euhémerizmustól áthatott fejezeteibe. Célom annak kiemelése is, hogy a művek eltérő célközönsége és céljai hogyan eredményeznek számos ponton összekapcsolódó, ám mégis sajátos jegyeket és eltéréseket mutató leírásokat.

Text and Document in Dante’s Vita nova

This article considers the importance of material philological features of the early manuscripts of Dante’s Vita nova for the work’s critical reception. Over the centuries, editors (most notably Giovanni Boccaccio) have recast textual meaning in the work mainly by marginalizing the poet’s glosses and by reformatting the poems. Attention to the material features of the earliest extant manuscript of the Vita nova (MS Martelli 12) with respect to later copies, however, prompts us to consider the creative interplay between Dante’s prosimetrum and the material features of the manuscript. To interpret a text critically is to acknowledge and to examine also how a manuscript or print edition orients textual interpretation. The editorial history of the Vita nova teaches us about the cultural processes and discourses of literary culture and about Italian literary history.

Commentary (both by Dante and on Dante)

The first part of this chapter aims to reconstruct the essential moments of Dante’s self-exegesis through an examination of the conditions that inspired it: a redefinition of the function of lyric, in the Vita nova; the explanation of the transmission of philosophical truths in poetic forms, in the Convivio; the original explanatory dialectic between the two planes of meaning, literal and allegorical, implemented in the Commedia. The second section of the chapter is devoted to the first commentaries on Dante’s Commedia, from the general introduction to Dante’s poem in the Epistle to Cangrande to the Esposizioni sopra la ‘Comedia’ by Giovanni Boccaccio.

El Decamerón, la Peste Negra y el Coronavirus

Ante el fenómeno de la pandemia universal del coronavirus en el ámbito mundial, en el presente trabajo partimos del reconocimiento de una aproximación de la literatura a la realidad, punto de partida frecuente en el proceso de creación literaria, especialmente en la narración. Según lo expuesto, la literatura no puede juzgarse solamente teniendo en cuenta su función artística, sino su relación con las diversas formas de la realidad: social, económica, cultural, etc. Se traza un paralelismo entre la “peste negra”, que se originó en Oriente, de donde pasó a Italia y a los demás países europeos, y la pandemia actual del coronavirus. En el reconocimiento de esta situación se ubica el punto de partida del desarrollo de la estructura y contenido del “Decamerón”, la notable obra de Giovanni Boccaccio: conjunto de cuentos referidos por siete muchachas y tres jóvenes varones, cada uno de los cuales relata diez cuentos. La decisión la adoptaron como una medida de aislamiento y entretenimiento para eludir el contagio de la epidemia.