This volume is the first sustained study of Boccaccio's consoling fictions as well as his reflections on the way literature can, and should, offer solace. It an

In Boccaccio's innovative text, ten young people leave Florence to escape the Black Death of 1348, and organize their collective life in the countryside through

Giuseppe Mazzotta provides both a powerful framework for reading the Decameron and an important contribution to medieval and contemporary debates in esthetics.

This collection of essays explores consolation and mourning in the varied, sometimes provocative, readings of Boethius and of Stoic consolation by French, Engli