Literary Study; Introduction to Boccaccio

 

I.                    Introduction to Literary Study: Getting It

A.     You’re already a critic.

B.     Literary Criticism

C.     Literary Knowledge

II.                 Introduction to the Class

A.     Course Objectives

B.     Requirements

C.     Content and Skill

III.               The Books and Authors

A.     Two Authors of Tales: Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron and Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron

B.     A Play and Poems by a Playwright: Lope de Vega, Fuente Ovenjuna and William Shakespeare, The Sonnets

C.     French Philosophy: Rene Descartes,  Meditations on First Philosophy

D.     Satire: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

E.      Opera: Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro

IV.              Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) and His World

A.     The End of the Middle Ages and the Beginning of the Renaissance

B.     The Rise of the Merchant Class: Giovanni’s Father, Boccaccino di Chellino

C.     Men of Letters: Early Renaissance Intellectual Life

D.     The Calamitous Fourteenth Century and the Black Plague of 1348

V.                 Introduction to Boccaccio’s Decameron

A.     The Narrative Frame

B.     The Stories