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Boccaccio’s Decameron (1352), a collection of 100 short stories, ranges from the bawdy through the cynical to the romantic and even fantastic. It has inspired numerous writers, artists, musicians and film-makers. We will read Boccaccio’s masterpiece on its own terms and in relation to the development of story-telling, from gossipy “news” (novelle) to artistic short story, theatrical adaptation, literary fairy-tale, and the fantastic. The Decameron will be compared with its forerunners in saints’ lives, bawdy fabliaux, and moral exempla, and with its literary, theatrical, and cinematic imitators in Italy and Europe. Italian graduate students and undergraduate majors will attend an extra weekly meeting conducted in Italian.