Thus she was decapitated,and this was the end to which she was brought by her unbridled lusts.'For over two centuries after Boccaccio's groundbreaking Decameron,the Italian novella exercised a crucial influence over European prose fiction. With thirty-nine stories by nineteen authors,many translated for the first time,this anthology presents tales from the whole genre and period. Here we meet a rich cast of humble peasants and shrewd craftsmen,frustrated wives,libidinous friars,ill-fated lovers,and vengeful nobles. These works had a considerable impact in English,and theselection includes tales that have provided sources for Chaucer,Shakespeare,Webster,Marston,Dryden,Byron and Keats.The typical novella is situated in a precise time and place and features people who either existed historically or are presumed to have done so. The subject-matter,whether ribald or sentimental,comic or tragic,often reflects the social and economic conditions of its age and thus the novella has been seen as a crucial stage in the development of fictional realism and the emergence of the novel
Publisher: Oxford University PressISBN: 9780198794967Weight: 268 gDimensions: 196 x 128 x 17 mm
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