Umorismo and Critical Reading in Boccaccio's Vernacular and Latin Opere 'Minori'
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Umorismo and critical reading in Boccaccio's vernacular and Latin opere 'minori' The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Axelrod, Sarah Luehrman. 2015. Umorismo and critical reading in Boccaccio's vernacular and Latin opere 'minori'. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467358 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Umorismo and critical reading in Boccaccio’s vernacular and Latin opere ‘minori’ A dissertation presented by Sarah Luehrman Axelrod to The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Romance Languages and Literatures Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2015 © Sarah Luehrman Axelrod, 2015 All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Jeffrey T. Schnapp Sarah Luehrman Axelrod UMORISMO AND CRITICAL READING IN BOCCACCIO’S VERNACULAR AND LATIN OPERE ‘MINORI’ Abstract Umorismo as Luigi Pirandello defines it is distinct from the general body of literary material meant to invoke laughter. It consciously turns rhetorical convention on its head: it creates unexpected oppositions through conscious and careful use of certain types of language in contexts where it is not expected. The aim of my study is to offer readers new ways to approach Giovanni Boccaccio’s lesser-known works as fundamentally humorous texts, among other things, and to observe how they are crafted and what sets them apart from other works to which one might compare them. I argue that Boccaccio created the Amorosa visione, the Teseida delle nozze di Emilia, the Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, and the De mulieribus claris with a sense of umorismo, that is to say, by playing with the conventions that each book’s respective genre invokes and then subverting expectations set up by those conventions. I examine each of these four works in its own chapter, with special attention to authorial voice, fictionality, narrative strategies, and intertextual practices. I rely chiefly on close readings of the texts themselves, in the original language first and foremost, and I attempt to draw out the humor that I see in the way they have been composed, often a result of play between their content and their structure and style. Ultimately, the umorismo in these works is, as Pirandello would agree it should be, not immediately evident: it takes patience and close reading to uncover. Boccaccio is staunchly in favor of critical and persistent reading as a necessary value that all poetry and fiction should require. His treatise in the Genealogia deorum gentilium on how readers should interact with books explicitly promotes the sort of reading required to perceive and parse the umorismo within his texts. ! iii TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE i COPYRIGHT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv FRONT MATTER RINGRAZIAMENTI v DEDICA vii PREFACE viii BODY OF TEXT CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 ‘Lector, intende: laetaberis’: Reading critically and uncovering humor from Apuleius to Pirandello CHAPTER 2 38 In favor of the ‘carne impigrita’: Resisting authority in the Amorosa visione CHAPTER 3 79 The stories, genres and writers of the Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia: “Colui il sa…che sono io” CHAPTER 4 120 Bringing out his feminine side with ‘lagrimevole stilo’ in the Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta CHAPTER 5 171 ‘Lasciva comperias immixta sacris’: Documenting and Editorializing in the De mulieribus claris CONCLUSIONS 216 BACK MATTER BIBLIOGRAPHY 225 ! iv RINGRAZIAMENTI I would like to extend my thanks to a great many people, beginning with the scholars who advised my research. Professor Francesco Erspamer has been a professional mentor to me since I began studying at Harvard, and his advice and encouragement have helped me look ahead to the shape of my career as I worked on the dissertation. I owe my interest in Cligès (Chapter 3) and in medieval literature more generally to Professor Virginie Greene, who accepted me with great patience first as a student in her course on the roman in 2010 and later as a dissertation advisee. Her expertise on Chrétien de Troyes in particular and on medieval poetry and prose in general proved indispensable to me, and I could not be more grateful for her extremely detailed and thoughtful feedback on every chapter. Finally, without Professor Jeffrey Schnapp’s deep knowledge of Boccaccio’s opere minori, the ideas for this dissertation would have remained just as untapped as many of those wonderful opere. I have been immeasurably shaped by his open and vibrant approach to medieval studies. Thank you to all three committee members for everything you have contributed to the development of this project, and for at least tolerating my sense of humor. To Mary Gaylord, who read countless drafts of three of these five chapters, drafts still in their “robe and slippers,” as she would say. To you, and to all who participated in your Dissertation Writers’ Seminar with me, thank you for the generosity of the time you all spent editing my writing, and for the grace with which you poked much-needed holes in my fledgling theories, strengthening the project immeasurably as you did so. ! v To Stefano Mula, my undergraduate advisor at Middlebury College and cherished friend, who read drafts of the entire dissertation and invited me to speak to his advanced students of Italian about my work. Thank you for encouraging me to pursue a Ph.D. in Italian Studies and for your indispensable guidance and camaraderie all along the way. To my colleagues in Romance Languages at Harvard, and especially my fellow italianisti, for giving me encouragement, “straight talk” when I needed it, bibliographical recommendations I depended on, corrections to my Italian, and collaboration, always. You are my team, and I am yours. To Dad, Ann, Henry, Jack, Carol, Jon, and Zach, who always asked, listened, and constantly checked up on me. Thank you for commiserating on every setback and celebrating every milestone, no matter how small. To my mother, Ann Roy Luehrman, editor and publisher of my earliest manuscripts (first grade, ca. 1993), wielder of the red pen: thank you for teaching me proper comma use and for making me learn French, through which I came to love Italian. You were right about everything. Finally, to Tristan, long sufferer of Ph.D.-by-association: thank you for showing me that my heart was in Italian, for moving to Brescia with me, and for wanting me to get this degree as much as I wanted it (sometimes, necessarily, just a little bit more). Thank you for your constancy, your loyalty, and your love. ! vi DEDICA For my daughter, with the hope that one day she will join me among Boccaccio’s inquiring and exacting lettrici. ! vii PREFACE Well before the first word of the first chapter was written or even imagined, my own introduction to these wonderful and underappreciated texts came at just the right moment: during the final semester before my general exams, when Professor Jeffrey Schnapp began teaching a course called “Boccaccio and/on Authority” at Harvard (2012). Right away, the presence of the double preposition intrigued me; Boccaccio’s opus is anything but straightforward in any position it takes; he would never call himself an authority on anything, would never characterize his work as being “on” something with the sort of forthrightness that that preposition entails. Yet, he does not simply exist alongside a concept of authority that he accepts and follows, as “and” implies. This was one of the first courses I had taken that did not attempt to provide a straight answer to all the puzzles that such complicated works constitute. Rather, we tried to do as Boccaccio commanded in the Genealogia: we read intertextually, intratextually, and with attention. We discussed, we argued, and most importantly, we gave ourselves and each other permission to find the whole thing funny. The humor, however, was contingent upon other readings that influenced and informed us. Each work we read benefited from the ones that had preceded it; having read the faux-glossator in the Teseida, “che sono io”, the self-commentary in the Elegia took on a much more complex and deliberately cagey tone. The De mulieribus claris and Boccaccio’s other Latin works seemed funny indeed when compared with what came before: here was someone clearly playing with the characteristics of encyclopedia, and with Latin prose itself. Reading these texts took on a different shape when we read them in dialogue with other texts: sometimes these were sources or derivatives, and sometimes they were just texts bearing some tangible and relevant material relationship ! viii to the primary texts. Drawing upon the format of this course, I began exploring humor in Boccaccio through a similar type of inquiry to that the course had modeled. Read the text closely, deeply, and see what stands out when another text, whether a partner or a foil, sits next to it. The more I pursued this topic, the more I began to perceive the subtle but no less present assumption of earnest and straightforward authorship in many medieval Italian texts. Either they were funny or they weren’t, and the idea that they could be humorously exploring something quite serious was often not even considered, if not downright contradicted. I have been lucky to work with professors who were quite eager to see me contradict this conventional wisdom and explore these texts.