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Romeo and Juliet before Shakespeare. Four Early Stories of Star-Crossed Love

2000; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.33137/q.i..v21i1.9441

2293-7382

Nicole Prunster, Laura Giannetti Ruggiero,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

Recensioni bly with their surroundings, and they reach the full ideal of "comprensione" in the Decameron (chs. 4-5).If Fiammetta in the Elegia would rather be a literary charac- ter than a living person, and the Corbaccio dreamer suffers from a bad case of "inca- pacitaX cognitiva," the enlightened brigata act out their commitment to responsible life in society by returning from their aistic utopia to the plague-ridden city.Actually, the Decameron goes even farther, displaying to its readers not only positive exam- ples of "comprehension" but also that most humane of virtues, "compassion."Giusti ends his study on a moving note of personal engagement with Boccaccio, who speaks to him at the turn of our new millennium with its own Black Death, a world besieged and wounded by Aids.Giusti's assertions, if cautious, are convincing.Separating out his insights from a heavy overlay of plot summaries and dutiful critical overviews does, however, require some diligent prospecting on the part of the reader.Although he assures us that he is aware of the distinction between author and narrator, he seems to blur the XsKo in his thesis.Is he saying that Boccaccio's characters become progessively more rational, or that Boccaccio himself gets better at defining understandable models of reasonable behavior?Or both?I wish we could hear more original analysis.I wish, too, that we might more often be allowed the enjoyment of a style in Giusti's own voice instead of lingering dissertationese sprinkled with academic jargon that crops