Courtesy lost : Dante, Boccaccio, and the literature of history / Kristina M. Olson.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In Courtesy Lost, Kristina M. Olson analyses the literary impact of the social, political, and economic transformations of the fourteenth century through an exploration of Dante's literary and political influence on Boccaccio.

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CHOICE Review

In this interesting study of Decameron, De casibus, and Esposizioni, Olson (George Mason Univ.) demonstrates how Boccaccio revised key aspects of Italian history, filtering them through the lens of Dante's Commedia. Employing the concept of cortesia--the cultivation of a "chivalric mentality"--as a heuristic, the author sheds light on Boccaccio's revision of this new history: "Boccaccio's 're-chronicling' ... is mediated through Dante but also through the volatile and changing political and social climate of the middle to late fourteenth century." In viewing Boccaccio's literary activity as dantista, the various chapters "speak to the transformation of the spirit of political invective that the Certaldese author inherited from his greatest Florentine predecessor as he draws inspiration from Dante's poetry of ethics and moralism to script the prose of social moralism, and ... the prose of a new republic." Employing a theoretically diverse methodology and careful attention to historical detail, Olson offers new insights on the relationship between Dante and Boccaccio, the social and literary culture of 14th-century Italy, and the increasing tensions between the aristocracy and the rising middle class. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty/ researchers. --Duke Pesta, University of Wisconsin--Oshkosh