Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Sunday, July 26. 2020

The joys of adultery in the plague years


Boccaccio's Decameron (1352) was written partly as porn for women of the time, situated away from Florence in an idyllic, sybaritic setting away from the urban Black Death. 


When women were commonly married off at 15 to older gents, naturally they sought romantic adventure and especially so when you might die any day from the plague. 


This was a time when the clergy were not too holy, and not overly-respected except on Sundays.


Boccaccio worshipped Dante's works and was a pal of Petrarch. A canonical writer with whom it would have been fun to have some wine.


The 30-min Great Books podcast on The Decameron. 



Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:43 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

Thanks for the link, that was really good, informative and entertaining.
#1 Tally Whagger on 2020-07-26 21:18 (Reply)
"This was a time when the clergy were not too holy, and not overly-respected except on Sundays."

So just like now?
#2 JTW on 2020-07-26 23:04 (Reply)
Started reading it when the lockdown began.
I'm now reading Dante.
I'm living on the 7th circle.
Help
#3 Jake on 2020-07-27 13:16 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.