Boccaccio's Naked Muse: Eros, Culture, and the Mythopoeic Imagination

Venturing outside the Decameron to the Latin works, and outside the usual textual and intertextual readings of Boccaccio to more broadly cultural and anthropological material, Boccaccio's Naked Muse offers fresh insights on this hugely significant literary figure.;Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on the Translations -- Introduction -- 1 Universal Myths of Origin: Boccaccio and the Golden Age Motif -- The Classical Golden Age Traditions -- Boccaccio's Elegiac Primitivism -- Boccaccio's Rationalistic Reevaluation of the Golden Age -- The Escape to Paradise -- 2 Local Myths of Origin: The Birth of the City and the Self -- Physical Restoration: The Fertile Loam of Tuscany -- Political Restoration and Miscegenation: Ex Pluribus Unum -- Boccaccio's Fruitful Bastardy -- 3 The Myth of a New Beginning: Boccaccio's Palingenetic Paradise -- Tabula Rasa and Saïtic Seed: The Effacement and Replacement of Knowledge -- The Restoration of Knowledge: The Poet as Pedagogical Pimp -- Nel Cospetto degli Uomini: The Prophylactic Peep-show of Decameron VI -- 4 The Myth of Historical Foresight: Babel and Beyond -- On the Shoulders of (Blasphemous) Giants: The Limits of Knowledge -- Through the Literary Looking-glass: The Textual Monument as Mirror -- Notes -- Works Consulted -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z.