Volume 31, Number 6 · April 12, 1984

The Joy and Malice of It All

By Robert M. Adams
Decameron
by Giovanni Boccaccio, translated by John Payne, revised and annotated by Charles S. Singleton

University of California Press, three boxed volumes: 949 pp., $145.00

We used to have a splendid scenario, no less picturesque than emotionally satisfying, to explain the abrupt appearance of the masterpiece from which Italian prose takes its rise. It ran about as follows:



Review, 3568 words

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