Italian Literature- Spring 1999

This course will be conducted in Italian. Students will spend much of the quarter reading and discussing Boccaccio's fourteenth-century masterpiece, his 100-tale DECAMERON. The class will also read selections from Boccaccio's other works and discuss the context of mercantile Florence and Naples in which Boccaccio wrote, as well as the broader tradition of the novella in Italy.

Assignments will consist of short papers written weekly (in Italian), an in-class presentation, and a take-home examination. Students who take this course as a senior seminar in Italian will contract with the instructor to write a longer research/interpretive paper. Prerequisite: Italian 5 or equivalent.

Literature majors who wish to read Boccaccio in translation might look at my senior seminar for this quarter, Frame Tale Fictions (LTPR 190 C), where Boccaccio will also make an appearance.

Revised 8/3/04.