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“Rebhorn deserves our gratitude for an eminently persuasive translation. . . . I celebrate his accomplishment.”—Edith Grossman
The year is 1348. The Black Death has begun to ravage Europe. Ten young Florentines—seven women and three men—escape the plague-infested city and retreat to the countryside around Fiesole. At their leisure in this isolated and bucolic setting, they spend ten days telling each other stories—tales of romance, tragedy, comedy, and farce—one hundred in all. The result, called by one critic "the greatest short story collection of all time" (Leonard Barkan, Princeton University) is a rich and entertaining celebration of the medley of medieval life.
Witty, earthy, and filled with bawdy irreverence, the one hundred stories of The Decameron offer more than simple escapism; they are also a life-affirming balm for trying times. The Decameron is a joyously comic book that has earned its place in world literature not just because it makes us laugh, but more importantly because it shows us how essential laughter is to the human condition.
Published on the 700th anniversary of Boccaccio’s birth, Wayne A. Rebhorn's new translation of The Decameron introduces a generation of readers to this "rich late-medieval feast" in a "lively, contemporary, American-inflected English" (Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University) even as it retains the distinctly medieval flavor of Boccaccio's rhetorically expressive prose.
An extensive introduction provides useful details about Boccaccio's historical and cultural milieu, the themes and particularities of the text, and the lines of influence flowing into and out of this towering monument of world literature.
- Sales Rank: #519611 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-09-16
- Released on: 2013-09-09
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
In time for Giovanni Boccaccio's 700th birthday, Wayne A. Rebhorn, professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin and translator of The Prince and Other Writings by Machiavelli, has provided a strikingly modern translation of Boccaccio's medieval Italian classic. Fleeing Florence and the plague of 1348, 10 young men and women retreat to a country estate, surrounded by meadows and marvelous gardens, where they spend their days in leisure while the Black Death ravages the city. To fill their time, and affirm life in the face of death, they tell stories: on each of 10 days, every character spins a tale on a theme. Thus, there are 100 stories in total, which range in tone from tragic to triumphant and from pious to bawdy, and which serve as monuments to the rich medieval life and society that the plague was to fundamentally alter. Rebhorn's translation is eminently readable and devoid of the stilted, antiquated speech associated with the classics. Indeed, at times the translator's rendering of Boccaccio's Italian into contemporary idiomatic American English feels jarring: my cheesy-weesy, sweet honeybun of a wife. But on the whole, his translation's accessibility allows for the timeless humanity of the work to shine through. The Decameron affords a fascinating view into the lost world of late-medieval Italy, and the variety and volume of tales offers us a refuge and relief from the tragedies that haunt our own world. (Sept.)
Review
“The Decameron, an inexhaustibly rich late-medieval feast of narrative cunning, bawdy humor, and sly wit, is a celebration of the sheer pleasure of being alive…With gusto and energy, Wayne Rebhorn has risen to the daunting task of translating this great work into lively, contemporary, American-inflected English.” (Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University, author of The Swerve)
“Wayne A. Rebhorn deserves our gratitude for an eminently persuasive translation of Boccaccio’s collection of tales…I celebrate his accomplishment.” (Edith Grossman, translator of Don Quixote)
“A lively, readable translation of the greatest short story collection of all time. The laugh-out-loud quality of Boccaccio’s delicious vernacular is admirably preserved.” (Leonard Barkan, Princeton University)
“This superb, powerful, beautifully crafted, and indeed definitive translation of The Decameron introduces readers anew to the sparkling and colorful writing of a pre-Renaissance Italian master.” (Valeria Finucci, Duke University)
“Ser Cepparello, Andreuccio, and Calandrino have never come across so well in English―Wayne Rebhorn’s vibrant new translation makes Boccaccio’s scoundrels and victims alike come back to life.” (Jane Tylus, New York University)
“Fluent and elegant . . . the achievement genuinely honours its original.” (Telegraph)
“A thoughtful piece of work… . This is the version [of The Decameron] I would recommend.” (Joan Acocella - The New Yorker)
About the Author
Wayne A. Rebhorn is the Celanese Centennial Professor of English at the University of Texas, where he teaches English, Italian, and comparative literature. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Most helpful customer reviews
39 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
Professor Rebhorn took 700 hundred-year-old Tuscan brick and left us with Carrara marble.
By Steve Amoia
"While my general goal as a translator, like that of all translators, is to make a text written in a foreign language and coming from a very distant culture comprehensible to modern readers of English, I also want them to appreciate something of the `strangeness' of this great classic work.
The root meaning of `translate' is to take something across a border or boundary, thus bringing that which is foreign or strange from one language, and in this case from a different age as well, into another. Translation makes strangers feel familiar, but a good one should also allow us to sense something of the alien in our midst.
A good translator is, in short, a go-between or middleman, linking the foreign with the domestic, the strange with the familiar, while preventing the former from being completely absorbed by the latter...
As a translator my goals are clearly contradictory, indeed paradoxical. The work that I have produced is thus, to some extent, betwixt and between two worlds, the modern world of the English-speaking reader, and the late medieval world of the Italian-speaking author."
---- Wayne A. Rebhorn, translator of "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio, pages lxiii and lxiv.
Most translators struggle to properly convey the meanings of words, feelings and emotions from modern-day writers. Professor Rebhorn took a trip 700 hundred years into the past to tackle one of the great works of Italian literature: The Decameron. As we have just seen from his introductory quote, he is our trusted middleman to a distant world, remote culture and a colloquial way of speaking.
Organized Format from Beginning to End
Given the voluminous nature of this work, the translator and publisher made a concerted effort to make the readers' task much easier. There is a detailed Table of Contents that is itemized by each of the ten days of the book with 100 concise summaries of every story. This is an excellent addition that acts as a prelude and a valuable reference source.
Detailed Introduction and Headnotes Sections
There is a lengthy introduction, of over 25 pages, where the translator introduces us to this epic tale. There is an interesting and educational Headnotes section where the translator introduces us to many time-specific and historic references. For example, the Names and Numbers of Storytellers where we learn that Fiammetta means "the little flame," and Panfilo means "he who is made entirely of love."
Professor Rebhorn also added a nice historic touch by describing the times of day in medieval Italy: "The hours included: matins, which, followed immediately by lauds, was celebrated before daybreak; prime, at sunrise; tierce, at midmorning; sext, at noon; nones, at midafternoon; vespers, at sunset; and compline, after dark." (Page lxxiii).
Brilliantly Constructed Notes Section
The notes section at the end of this work was almost a book in itself. There were 90 pages of the most organized and detailed notes by Day/Story with translation explanations in minute detail. For example: "The Doria family played an important role in the economic, military, and political life of Genoa from the twelfth century onward. There is no record of any of its members having the surname of Guasparrino (a Genoese dialectal variant of Gasparino, the diminutive form of `Gasparo,' or Casper, the name of one of the three Magi.)" (Note 5, Day 2, Story 6).
A Translation Masterclass
Professor Rebhorn told us that his job was to transcend two worlds from speakers of fourteenth century Florentine-influenced Italian to twenty-first century readers of American English. Here were a few examples how he achieved this objective:
"One of the most interesting features of the style of Boccaccio's work is that although he frequently speaks of the `low' subject of sex, he never resorts to anything like low language in order to do so." (Page lxvii)
"Some people were of the opinion that living moderately and being abstemious would really help them resist the disease... Others, holding the contrary opinion, maintained that the surest medicine for such an evil disease was to drink heavily, enjoy life's pleasures, and go about singing and having fun... In the midst of so much affliction and misery in our city the respect for the reverend authority of the laws, both divine and human, had declined just about to the vanishing point..." (Pages 8-9)
"This gal's a beauty, and nobody really knows she's here. If I can get her to have some fun with me, I don't know why I shouldn't do it. Who is there to know? No one is ever going to find out about it, and `a sin that's hidden is half forgiven.' " (Day 1, Story 4, Page 53)
"The podesta (chief magistrate), thinking it preferable to accuse himself of having tried to rape her before she leveled that charge herself, began by praising her for her constancy, in proof of which he proceeded to explain what he had done. He went on to say that as a result of seeing how wonderfully resolute she had remained, he had fallen passionately in love wit her, and in conclusion, declared that, if it was agreeable to Messer Negro, as her father, and also to the girl herself, he would gladly make her his wife, notwithstanding the fact that her previous husband had been baseborn." (Day 4, Story 6, Page 388).
"It's not like that for men. They're born with a thousand different talents besides this, and for the most part, the older ones are worth much more than the young. But women were born just to do this single thing, and to make babies, and that's the only reason why they're cherished.
Now, if nothing else will convince you of this, then you ought to consider the fact that we women are always ready for it, which is not the case with men. What's more, one woman could exhaust a host of men, whereas a host of men can't tire out a single woman." (Day 5, Story 10, Page 503).
" `By gosh, your Reverence," Bentivegna replied, `to tell the honest truth, I'm a-goin' to the city on some bidness of mine, and I'm taking these things to Ser Bonaccorri da Ginestreto so that he'll help me with --- well, I just don't know what to make of it ---- for the persecuting judge had his provoker give me a parentstory summons to appear before him.' " (Day 8, Story 2, Page 650).
"I remember once being told that in Persia they have a custom, most agreeable in my opinion, which is that whenever someone wants to confer a special honor on one of his friends, he invites him to his house and shows him the thing he holds most dear, whether it's his wife or his mistress or his daughter or whatever it may be, declaring that just as he has shown him this thing, he would show him his heart even more readily if he could. Now this is a custom I would like us to observe here in Bologna." (Day 10, Story 4, Page 842).
The Long-lost Treasure Trove of Giovanni Boccaccio
Professor Rebhorn: "Anyone producing a book like this one has incurred debts almost too numerous to mention." (Page 935)
Augustus: "I found Rome a city of brick, and left Rome a city of marble."
One of the goals of literary translation is to share great works of literature with an audience who would otherwise remain in a cognitive darkness. The translator finds and unlocks a long-lost treasure trove the same way that explorers used to put messages in bottle. With the hope that their message will change the life of its recipient in some distant land.
This book chronicles the earthy humor, grace, intellect and irony from a miserable time in human history: The Great Plague of the Middle Ages. We are in Professor Rebhorn's debt: He took 700 hundred-year-old Tuscan brick and left us with Carrara marble.
Please Note
I received a complimentary review copy of this book from a representative of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company. I was not compensated by the publisher, translator or any other party who would benefit from a positive review.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Read The Decameron — but consider a different translation
By Chris Fow Cohen
The unabridged story collection is a must-read, but try out a few translations before you choose one.
This translation was touted for its modernity. I think that gets in the way. A friend and I are reading it together, and at times I prefer her translation to mine. The cadence of the stories is Old World, and sometimes the newfangled words jar me into realizing I'm reading a modern translation.
Also, if you find a translation that doesn't summarize the story at the beginning of the chapter, or one that doesn't tell you the ending, consider that a bonus. I don't need to know the ending before I even begin to read it.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
A welcome edition of a classic anthology
By John L Murphy
This handsome edition fulfills the need for a brisk American English version of these hundred tales. This interpreter of Dante a generation before, and friend (or rival?) of Petrarch occupies the third position in fame among the Italians who championed energetic tales and vivid verse. As this U. of Texas professor emphasizes in his helpful introduction, "being in the middle of things" not only sums up Dante as he started his epic, but Giovanni Boccaccio. Around 1348, nearly half a century after the Commedia took place and the Inferno began, this Florentine set his prose in the wake of the Black Death. Rebhorn reckons that Boccaccio followed the Renaissance-minded Petrarch in turning away from the medieval mindset, as well as the vernacular which Dante had championed, but luckily Boccaccio took time from his classic endeavors to copy his manuscript and to preserve it from a pious mood later in his life when he threatened to burn it and the other salacious or sly stories.
These, of course, kept his reputation, more than what Chaucer took from the classical tales and moralistic concerns before and after the hundred tales. It "takes a set of medieval genres and fills them with Renaissance themes and characters." (xxvi) More women, more merchants, more ribaldry and fewer nobles than before. Seven women and three men tell the tales, ten a day with breaks for all to pray and the women to bathe for the Sabbath, in retreats just outside plague-ravaged Florence. These follow in Rebhorn's interpretation a ritual community of ten tellers, considering as if case studies (for the book ends abruptly and the return to normal life is sudden) of four themes: the power and the temptations of intelligence, fortune, desire, magnanimity (a more sly virtue than it seems).
The stories have unsettled some; their sexual content is famous but the real tug against convention persists beneath the rather decorous tone Boccaccio sustains for his properly raised tellers. That is, the tales test our understanding of why they draw us so much into a morally ambiguous array of characters, and how they often carry out their subversion free of any comment from author and usually the teller. Sophisticated prose in longer fiction was, after all, starting to emerge back then. I will leave explication of the tales aside, for the bulk of this encourages slow reading, as too many rushed by make their themes blurred, and a sensation is dulled of contents. Like Chaucer or Dante, this collection of adventures merits a more thoughtful pace than we modern readers tend to cultivate.
Don't expect, therefore, a quick rush as you make your way through. These tales reflect an early stage in narrative, and they do not display the links between themes and characters or tellers as sharply as Chaucer's tales started to do, a few decades later. As an aside, it's noteworthy to consider how Chaucer seemed to side with Petrarch's advice to Boccaccio to move to the classics for inspiration, even as of course how Chaucer supported his own polished vernacular phrasing, and mixed wittier or earthier content with the very learned and dogmatic pronouncements akin to those three Italians.
Rebhorn strives for the long, periodic and sinuous sentences of the original, but he admits he cuts some for clarity, as the tone of Boccaccio can elude the more direct phrasing our own time favors. He suits a modern ear, although he often avoids the more elegant diction of British predecessors. He captures the register and the class or dialect range of the original, and the endnotes assist users, who need a sturdy large-format edition that can hold up under use, as opposed to smaller paperbacks from preceding translators and presses, which have small type and fewer notes, let alone a lovely typeface.
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