Decamerons

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Decameron , 1492
Garden of the Villa Schifanoia in Fiesole
Flemish illustration for the Decameron, 1432 (Paris, National Library)
Sandro Botticelli , painting for a novella from the Decameron, 1487 (Madrid, Prado)
John William Waterhouse : Decameron (1916)

The Dekameron or Il Decamerone ( Italian ; from Greek δέκα déka "ten" and ἡμέρα hēméra "day") is a collection of 100  short stories by Giovanni Boccaccio . In all likelihood, it was written between 1349 and 1353. The title Decamerone means - based on the Greek - "ten-day work". It is a style-defining work that has become the model for almost all other collections of western novels.

action

Boccaccio relocates the framework action to a country house in the hills of Florence (in the suburb of Fiesole ), three kilometers from what was then the city center of Florence . Seven women and three young men fled to this country house from the plague ( Black Death ) that struck Florence in the spring and summer of 1348. In the country house the refugees try to entertain each other. Therefore, a queen or a king is appointed every day, who defines a topic. Each of those present has to think of a story about this topic and share it with the best. After ten days and ten times ten novellas, the group returns to Florence.

About the work

The cyclical structure of the work relates to the meaning of the old sacred number ten, which Bonaventure had called numerus perfectissimus , with Dante's Divine Comedy , which is divided into a hundred chants, serving as a model.

The portrayal of the plague in Florence is depicted in an oppressively realistic and detailed manner. It also serves as a historical source on this epidemic to this day. The introduction can undoubtedly be understood as a memento mori , which stands at the beginning of the light-hearted and joyful novels. They are told by the young people in a cultivated atmosphere of the country house, which is surrounded by lush gardens, with games and dancing. Since the themes of the stories are variable and also kept general, there is a great variety of fine or crude, tragic or funny stories. A whole world theater is stretched out in them, the actors of which are sultans and kings as well as farmers, craftsmen and rascals. The locations also cover almost the entire world known at the time. Church people and especially monks usually get off particularly badly. Above all, the description of the clergy and initially less the eroticism of some of the novels later led to the rejection of Boccaccio by the church. Sexual freedom and enjoyment of the senses are often placed above Christian moral doctrine, for example when a story ends with the words (III.3): “But then they knew how to arrange it so that they could, without further needing the help of the Father, were able to spend many nights with the same joy, to what happiness God may soon help me and other Christian souls (...) in his mercy ”, whereby with“ joy ”or“ happiness ”in this case adultery is meant.

Fourth day - Apologo delle Papere ( Apologo of the Geese), painting by Meli Valdés Sozzani (2013)

Since Boccaccio himself states that the stories were not invented by him, intensive research was carried out into the sources of the individual stories. They can be traced back to the most varied of origins and traditions, such as ancient sources, medieval, especially French legends and junk literature, or older Italian narrative traditions. But Boccaccio does not simply recount his stories, he redesigns his role models in many ways.

The country house in which Boccaccio's shop is located has been preserved and is located halfway between Florence and Fiesole on Via Boccaccio. Today there is a department of the European University Institute there .

Impact history

Even the grammarians and rhetoricians of the Renaissance were of the opinion that Boccaccio's Decameron was a masterpiece. Together with Dante and Francesco Petrarca, the author became a pioneer and role model for their own endeavors. Today the decameron is undisputedly the origin of Italian prose in general and a work that has had a lasting influence on world literature. The collection of novels was created by Geoffrey Chaucer ( Canterbury Tales ), Margarete von Navarra ( Heptaméron ), Giambattista Basile ( Pentameron ), Miguel de Cervantes (Novelas ejemplares) , François Rabelais , Christoph Martin Wieland ( Hexameron von Rosenhain ) , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( conversations of German emigrants ) and numerous authors who are no longer well known today. Goethe valued the work very much and put the name Boccaccios in "Boccaz". The Romantics also paid special attention to the collection of novels and were encouraged to write their own works, for example Honoré de Balzac with his Tolldreisten stories set in the late Middle Ages . William Shakespeare ( Cymbeline and all's well that ends well ) , Hans Sachs , Jonathan Swift and Josef Viktor Widmann used material from individual stories . The figure of Melchizedech and the motif of the three rings, which can no longer be distinguished (I.3), form the basis of the ring parable in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Nathan the Wise .

See also

expenditure

Il Decameron Di Messer Giovanni Boccacci , Florentine edition of 1587
  • Venice 1470
  • Florence 1470
  • Venice 1471 (improved edition)
  • Mantua 1472
  • Venice 1492 (contains G. Squarciafico: Vita di Giouan Bocchaccio da Certaldo ; with illustrations)
  • Valladolid 1539 (Spanish translation)
  • Florence 1587
  • Prague 1899 (German EA is the complete translation by Gustav von Joanelli, publishing house by Alois Hynek, Prague, 3 volumes)
  • Turin 1980, edited by V. Branca (with bibliography and comments)

German translations

Older editions

Current issues

  • Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron , with contribution from Kindler's literary lexicon (original title: Il Decamerone, translated by Karl Witte ). Unabridged edition (= Fischer TB. 90006). Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-596-90006-0 .
  • Giovanni Boccaccio: Decameron . Selected, translated and edited by Klabund , Anaconda, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-86647-549-6 .
  • Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron . Original title: Il Decamerone, translated by Karl Witte, reviewed by Helmut Bode. With an afterword and a chronological table by Winfried Wehle (= Winkler Weltliteratur . Blue series). Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2005, ISBN 978-3-538-06998-5 .
  • Giovanni Boccaccio: Das Dekameron (original title: Il Decamerone, translated by Christian Kraus). Dörfler, Utting 2007, ISBN 978-3-89555-490-2 .
  • Giovanni Boccaccio: Decameron. Twenty selected short stories, Italian / German, translated and edited by Peter Brockmeier, with bibliography and bibliography (= RUB Reclams Universal Library Volume 8449). Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-008449-6
  • Giovanni Boccaccio: The Decameron . With the woodcuts from the Venetian edition of 1492. Translated from the Italian, with commentary and afterword by Peter Brockmeier. Reclam, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-15-010853-6 .

Audio book

Editing as a radio play

Film adaptations

A popular subject even in the days of silent films, films with Decamerone in the title experienced an unexpected boom after the success of Pasolini's masterpiece. Within a few months, numerous films were released in mostly Italian cinemas.

literature

Monographs
  • Elisabeth Arend: Laughter and comedy in Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron (= Analecta romanica. 68). Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M. 2004, ISBN 978-3-465-03229-8 .
  • Diemut M. Billen: Boccaccio's Decameron and the Didactic Literature of the High Middle Ages. Transformations of the discourse at an epoch threshold . Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Egelsbach 1992, ISBN 3-89349-503-7 (plus dissertation, University of Wuppertal 1992).
  • Francesco De Sanctis : History of Italian Literature ("Storia della letteratura italiana"). Kröner, Stuttgart 1941/43 (2 vol .; here especially vol. 1).
  • Wilhelm T. Elwert : The Italian literature of the Middle Ages. Dante , Petrarca , Boccaccio (= UTB . 1035). Francke, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7720-1296-5 .
  • Kurt Flasch : Poetry after the plague. The beginning of the "Decameron" translated and explained anew (= Excerpta classica. 10). Dietrich, Mainz 1992, ISBN 3-87162-027-0 .
  • Victoria Kirkham: The sign of reason in Boccaccio's fiction (= Biblioteca di "Lettere italiane". 43). Olschki, Florence 1993, ISBN 88-222-4111-8 .
  • Otto Löhmann: The frame story of the Decameron. Their sources and aftermath; a contribution to the history of the frame narrative (= Romance works. 22). Niemeyer, Halle / Saale 1935.
  • Lucia Marino: The Decameron "Cornice". Allusion, allegory, and iconology . Longo Editore, Ravenna 1979 (also dissertation, Los Angeles 1977).
  • Giuseppe Mazzotta: The world at play in Boccaccio's Decameron . Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1986, ISBN 0-691-06677-9 .
  • Jan Söffner : The Decameron and its frame of the illegible . Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-8253-1632-7 (plus dissertation, University of Cologne 2002).
Articles and essays
  • Werner Fuld : The discovery of the world. In: A History of Sensual Writing (Chapter 1). Galiani, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86971-098-3 , pp. 19–34.
  • Joachim Heinzle : School of Life, School of Love. Eroticism and Didax in European Novellistics between the Middle Ages and Modern Times . In: Horst A. Glaser (Ed.): Approach attempts. On the history and aesthetics of the erotic in literature (= facets in literature. 4). Haupt, Bern 1993, ISBN 3-258-04731-6 .
  • Walter Jens (ed.): Kindlers new literature lexicon . Systema-Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-634-23231-5 (CD-ROM).
  • Barbara Sichtermann : The renaissance bell strikes. The lusty utopia of Giovanni Boccaccio. ( Online at deutschlandfunk.de, accessed on March 16, 2020).
  • Winfried Wehle : Death, Life and Art. Boccaccio's Decameron or the Triumph of Language. In: Arno Borst u. a. (Ed.): Death in the Middle Ages. 2nd edition. Universitätsverlag, Konstanz 1995, ISBN 3-87940-437-2 , pp. 221-260 ( PDF ).
  • Winfried Wehle : "Venus magistra vitae": Sull 'anthropologia iconografica del' Decameron '. In: Michelangelo Picone (ed.): Autori e lettori di Boccaccio. Atti del convegno internazionale di Certaldo (September 20-22, 2001). Cesati, Firenze 2002, pp. 343-361 ( PDF ).
  • Winfried Wehle : In the purgatory of life. Boccaccio's project of a narrative anthropology. In: Achim Aurnhammer, Rainer Stillers (Ed.): Giovanni Boccaccio in Europa. Studies on its reception in the late Middle Ages and early modern times. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2014, pp. 19–45. ( PDF ).
  • Gero von Wilpert : Dekameron . In the S. (Ed.): Lexicon of world literature . Biographical and bibliographical concise dictionary based on authors and anonymous works . Kröner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83804-4 .

Web links

Commons : Decameron  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Decameron  - Sources and full texts (Italian)

swell

  1. ↑ Location of the house
  2. ^ JV Widmann: An old Paris. Dramatic chat in one act (based on the tenth story of the first day), premiered in Meinigen on December 12, 1895. In: Jung und Alt. Drei Dichtungen , Leipzig 1897, pp. 109–141.
  3. ^ Gotthold Lessing to Elise Reimarus, letter of September 6, 1778; in: Ephraim Lessing: Collected Works, Volume 9: Letters. 2nd Edition. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1968, p. 798 f.
  4. ^ Il Decameron Di Messer Giovanni Boccacci Cittadin Fiorentino. Giunti, Firenze 1587 ( digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A10165956~SZ%3D~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D in the digital collections of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich).
  5. ^ Britta Hannemann: World literature for citizens' daughters. The translator Sophie Mereau-Brentano . Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-896-5 , p. 231 ( limited preview in the Google book search; examination of the printed stories from the 'Decamerone' ) and p. 291 ( limited preview in the Google book search; sources ).
  6. ↑ Review in: Litteratur- und Theater-Zeitung № XX, Berlin, May 15, 1784, p. 107 ( digitized in the Google book search).
  7. ↑ Reviews in: Neue Leipziger Literaturzeitung , issue 19 of February 10, 1804, column 289 f. ( Digitized in the Google book search); Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung № 109 of May 10, 1808, Sp. 257–261 ( digitized version ).
  8. ↑ "Dr. W. Röder ”is Gustav Diezel's pseudonym, cf. 3rd edition from 1855 (Boccaccio's Dekameron and Fiammetta) , foreword by the translator.
  9. ↑ Part 4 ( at the beginning of the book called Lady Fiammetta's lamentation by her dedicated to the loving women ) begins after p. 318 of the third part.
  10. ↑ Andreas Schäfer: The burlesque lust for frivolous. Giovanni Boccaccio: "The Decameron". Book review (audio book) from December 27, 2013 in the archive of Deutschlandfunk, accessed on March 16, 2020.
  11. ↑ Data sheet in the ARD audio game database.