GEH 101 - Guiding Questions: Readings from Boccaccio, The Decameron

 

Required Readings and Due Dates:

Remember, reading quizzes can come at any time, so be prepared!

 

• Introduction to the First Day (link on course webpage) Due Wednesday, October 2
• Lisabetta and the Pot of Basil (link on course webpage) Due Monday, October 9

 

Recommended (optional) reading:

Sontag, Susan. AIDS and Its Metaphors 132-147. 

Conrad, Lawrence, et al., The Western Medical Tradition, 189-198

 

Introduction to the First Day

 

What does the Introduction say about the medical dimensions of the plague? What are its causes, its mode of transmission, its symptoms? What kinds of challenges did it present to the practice of medicine?

 

What does it say about the social dimensions of the plague? How do social behaviors and relationships change as the plague worsens?

 

What does it say about the moral dimensions of the plague?  How do behaviors based in beliefs about moral conduct change as the plague worsens?

 

In what ways does Boccaccio’s description of the plague suggest its ability to blur ontological boundaries—the lines we like to think separate the human from the animal?

 

What does it say about the spiritual dimensions of the plague, at least to the extent that the worsening plague changes religious practices regarding the treatment of the dead?

 

What does it say about how the imagination was a factor in how people perceived the plague and planned their own regimen of prophylaxis? (look it up)  (019

 

What does the Introduction say or suggest about the gendered and sexual dimensions of the plague? How did it change customary gendered behavior? How did it affect sexual mores and practices?  NOTE:  when Boccaccio writes on line 014 that “intercourse was apt to convey [the plague] from the sick to the whole,” this does NOT mean sexual intercourse per se. Look up the word!

 

What other dimension of life that the plague affects would you add to this list? Is it a subset of the list?

 

What logic does Pampinea use to persuade her friends to follow her plan? What are the reasons she gives for why they may 1) leave the city and 2) invite the young men to go with them, despite the conventions that normally would prohibit them doing this?

 

Is Pamipinea’s assertion that women can’t possibly “rule themselves” without the guidance of a man a sincere belief or a rationalization?  How might we decide?

 

While we do hear that the countryside is as much a site of illness as the city, what arguments does Pampinea make for the countryside as a site of greater health? Do you think these ideas prevail today?

 

What other ideas about plague, illness, disease, etc. from the Introduction sound like today’s ideas and behaviors? Do you see any connections to the excerpts we read from Sontag’s book? If you have time, take a look at her 5^th chapter in AIDS and its Metaphors, pages 132-147.

 

 

Fourth Day, Novel V - Lisabetta and the Pot of Basil

 

Why are Lisabetta’s brothers angry with Lorenzo?

 

What do they do to him?

 

How do they cover up their actions?

 

What leads Lisabetta to discover the truth and find Lorenzo?

 

What does the full story add beyond the summary that appears at its beginning? How is reading the full story a different experience than reading the summary?  What details are particularly affecting?

 

While this could be a true and literal story, consider the story as a more figurative or imaginative story. What messages does the plot send us about 1) the sanctity of the body; 2) the relationship between the human body and the rest of nature, i.e. plants and animals; 3) the power of love; 4) the power of grief; 5) the consequences of doing evil?

 

A gripping story on its own, this story is one of many generated in the larger frame of the plague and the young peoples’ retreat from a city filled with disease to a much more attractive physical setting and very congenial company. Why tell a story like this in these contexts? What do the story and the larger narrative frame have to do with each other? (Many right answers! Use your imagination!)

 

Keywords (please look up, along with others that are unfamiliar)