A Rhetoric of the Decameron

Both a passionate denunciation of masculinist readings of the Decameron and ameticulous critique of previous feminist analyses Marilyn Migiels A Rhetoricof the ... » 

Both a passionate denunciation of masculinist readings of the Decameron and ameticulous critique of previous feminist analyses Marilyn Migiels A Rhetoricof the Decameron offers a sophisticated reexamination of the representationsof women men gender identity sexuality love hate morality and truth inBoccaccios masterpiece. The Decameron stages an ongoing dynamic and spiriteddebate about issues as urgent now as in the fourteenth century ? a debate thatcan only be understood if the Decamerons rhetorical objectives and strategiesare completely reconceived.Addressing herself equally to those who argue for aprotofeminist Boccaccio ? a quasiliberal champion of womens autonomy ? andto those who argue for a positivistically secure historical Boccaccio who couldnot possibly anticipate the concerns of the twentyfirst century Migielchallenges readers to pay attention to Boccaccios language to his pronounshis passives his echolalia his patterns of repetition and his figurativelanguage. She argues that human experience particularly in the sexual realmis articulated differently by the Decamerons male and female narrators andrefutes the notion that the Decameron offers an undifferentiated celebration ofEros. Ultimately Migiel contends the stories of the Decameron suggest that aswomen become more empowered the limitations on them including the threat ofviolence become more insistent. «