Post date: Apr 2, 2017 6:56:09 PM
The posts for the next two week's are going to focus on The Decameron so let's see how this is going to go. Unlike last week, there were times when I wanted to hit Boccaccio over the head for his remarks about women. He starts with the introduction of "oh I don't want to scare you ladies away because I'll be talking about the plague" and I mean really (6). Really? We go through childbirth and menstruation and you don't think women can handle gross painful things? Please. But then I can't get made at him because I really liked the opening lines of the preface:
"To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others."
These are beautiful lines to open a book, especially one focusing on human suffering, right? However the more I read the less I got the feel of this being a "plague" book. Moving past the preface into the introduction he goes "reflecting upon so many miseries make me very sad...I wish to pass over as many as I can" (14). I feel as if I am simply listing quotes for my blog post but there are just so many good lines. Boccaccio isn't focusing so much on the plague but the human desire to escape and avoid the plague. Similar to the Canterbury Tales we are following a group as they travel along but this time for drastically different reasons. The group also seems more self-reflective than in the Canterbury Tales perhaps from the influence of humanism. They ponder "what are we doing here?....Let us avoid death itself...and go to live in a more dignified fashion in our country houses" (17). There's so many things I enjoy about this quote. First, this is a higher up class of people and one of the interesting ideas of death, especially death brought about through means of plague, is that it is an equalizer. Plague or just viral disease in general is one of the most equal distributors of death as you cannot buy your way out of it such as you could for fighting in a war. Besides the equality in death, there also seems to be this idea of having dignity in death. Without being too morbid I have a lot of experience with death and believe it could be argued either way as having dignity or not. It seems hard, painful, exhausting, and usually just very sad. There doesn't seem to be a lot of the "Dignity of Man" going on in the black plague.
So with all these questions, references, and ramblings, where does that leave us? We are following a group of people who are trying to find the almost myth of "dignity in death" and are telling stories to pass the time. At least from what I read, the stories all seem humorous and entertaining which does not fit my idea of talk around the black plague. However as someone with a decently dark sense of humor, I could picture myself joining and telling stories right along with them for the simple reason of why not? The world might end tomorrow, I might get the plague tomorrow, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. So do I sit and wait for the void to take me away or do I join in the human experience of story telling. Have some laughs, enjoy my day, and know that I was actively participating in life instead of letting it pass me by. And come to think of it, maybe that is the real dignity in death.