Overview
- Offers knowledge and analysis for a wide range of scholars including philosophers, postcolonial scholars, literary medievalists, and those interested in comparative literature
- Complicates Boccaccio’s famed Decameron through a comprehensive analysis of the work’s philosophical implications
- Connects Boccaccio to a wider discussion about the history of literature, philosophy, and epistemology particularly within a medieval context
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages (TNMA)
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- exemplum tradition
- Genealogie deorum gentilium
- Neo-Platonic epistemology
- Boccaccio's theories on knowledge acquisition
- Second Day of the Decameron and Dante's Commedia
- Connection between rhetoric and knowledge
- Boccaccio and rhetoric
- Ethics in the Decameron
- medieval concept of honesty
- Influence of Thomas Aquinas on Boccaccio
- Influence of Aristotle on Boccaccio
- Natural Law, Thomistic ethics, and the Decameron
- Boccaccio's attitude towards philosophy
- Influence of Petrarch on Boccaccio
- Elegia di Costanza
- Filocolo
- Boccaccio's experiences at the Studium of the Biblioteca Reale
- Boccaccio's storytelling and wisdom
- Medieval Italian poetry and philosophy
- Boccaccio and cognition
About this book
This book explores the tangled relationship between literary production and epistemological foundation as exemplified in one of the masterpieces of Italian literature. Filippo Andrei argues that Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron has a significant though concealed engagement with philosophy, and that the philosophical implications of its narratives can be understood through an epistemological approach to the text. He analyzes the influence of Dante, Petrarch, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and other classical and medieval thinkers on Boccaccio's attitudes towards ethics and knowledge-seeking.  Beyond providing an epistemological reading of the Decameron, this book also evaluates how a theoretical reflection on the nature of rhetoric and poetic imagination can ultimately elicit a theory of knowledge.  Â
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Filippo Andrei is Adjunct Professor at the California State University International Program in Florence. He has previously held the position of Lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Born in Florence, his research interests include Italian Literature, Romance Philology and Medieval Latin Literature. His essays have appeared in several specialized journals.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Boccaccio the Philosopher
Book Subtitle: An Epistemology of the Decameron
Authors: Filippo Andrei
Series Title: The New Middle Ages
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65115-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-65114-9Published: 19 October 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-87953-6Published: 18 May 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-65115-6Published: 07 October 2017
Series ISSN: 2945-5936
Series E-ISSN: 2945-5944
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 259
Topics: Medieval Literature, European Literature, Epistemology, Medieval Philosophy