Both a passionate denunciation of masculinist readings of the Decameron and a meticulous critique of previous feminist analyses, Marilyn Migiel's A Rhetoric of the Decameron offers a sophisticated re-examination of the representations of women, men, gender identity, sexuality, love, hate, morality, and truth in Boccaccio's masterpiece. The Decameron stages an ongoing, dynamic, and spirited debate about issues as urgent now as in the fourteenth century - a debate that can only be understood if the Decameron's rhetorical objectives and strategies are completely...

With The Ethical Dimension of the "Decameron" Marilyn Migiel, author of A Rhetoric of the "Decameron" (winner of the MLA's 2004 Marraro Prize), returns to Giovanni Boccaccio's masterpiece, this time to focus on the dialogue about ethical choices that the Decameron creates with us and that we, as individuals and as groups, create with the Decameron.

Maintaining that we can examine this dialogue to gain insights into our values, our biases and our decision-making processes, Migiel offers a view of the Decameron as sticky and thorny....