SOURCE: Nissen, Christopher. “Acquisition, Renunciation, and Retribution in The Decameron”. In Ethics of Retribution in the “Decameron” and the Late Medieval Italian Novella: Beyond the Circle, pp. 7-29. Lewiston, N.Y: Mellon University Press, 1993.

In the following excerpt, Nissen argues that the Decameron reflects a time of shifting values in a society in flux, with Boccaccio exploring some ethical possibilities offered by that society.

The prevailing interest in the novella as a vehicle for the literary portrayal of society has naturally been directed primarily at the Decameron, the collection which has received the most attention. Decameron studies reveal, in the main, a considerable tendency toward sociological analysis in their approach to the work.¹ It is not difficult to see why: even to the casual glance, Boccaccio appears in his book to be principally concerned with the depiction of society and social values; it is in this depiction that...