Year: 2008
Type: book-review
Abstract: Boccaccio's Naked Muse comprises four chapters, each of which focuses on a differ- ent facet of Boccaccio as mythographer, and constitutes a discrete study in itself Gittes' four interrelated arguments collectively portray Boccaccio as a self-stylized neo-Prometheus whose offering to humanity is a collection ol myths tantamount to a "gospel of human dignity;" these myths "insist" upon the "innate innocence of humanity [...] promote cosmopolitanism and tolerance by granting a new pri- macy to racial and cultural mixing in the birth of nations [...] celebrate the intel- lectual, artistic, and cultural accomplishment of all peoples regardless of race or culture [...] and locate human beatitude not in a prehistoric past or metaphysical future, but squarely in the present" (4).Gittes situates himself and his work in the line of critics and critical works that perceive " sovrasemr in Boccaccio's writings (8).Specifically, in Gittes' eyes, the voices of Boccaccio the moralizer, Boccaccio the poet, Boccaccio the scholar, Boccaccio the mythographer and Boccaccio the pragmatist permeate his works, now sitting side by side, each in stratified isolation, now harmonizing in melodic concert.Defending Boccaccio's originality against claims that the fourteenth-cen- tury author is "more imitator than innovator" (11), Gittes challenges the stance of critics who "tak[e] Boccaccio at his word, casting him as a dilettantish scholar [...] a dabbler in rhyme [...] and a scribbler of frivolous tales" (7).In his first chapter, Gittes surveys the history of the Golden Age motif and
Source: Quaderni d italianistica
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2208974337