The University of Leeds

Graduate Student, Italian

Other Affiliations: University of Reading, Modern Languages and European Studies

Teaching Assistant

Thesis Title: 'Io, della presente opera componitore': Self-Reflexion in Boccaccio’s 'Filocolo'

About

The thesis focuses on literary self-reflexion in one of Boccaccio’s earliest works, the 'Filocolo' (1336-9), a prose romance in the vernacular, which narrates the tale of the renowned medieval lovers Florio and Biancifiore.

Boccaccio’s Neapolitan years are a key phase in his intellectual and literary formation, and a time to which he would often return in both an emotive and literary sense. Understandably this initial period is too often overshadowed by the immensity of the 'Decameron'. However, a more complete understanding of Boccaccio’s intellectual evolution demands closer consideration of his early vernacular works. It is precisely in Naples, for example, that the ambitious young author begins to create his enduring yet complex authorial persona, an expression of the author’s own cultural and literary concerns. He achieves this partly through the conception of an elusive muse, Fiammetta, and by framing his tales with their mythical love affair, a relationship Boccaccio uses from the outset to reflect upon authorship and literary creation. 

The study therefore first pays attention to the work's proem and to its envoi, in which we encounter the self-presentation of the author and the emergence of his muse. It is in the 'Filocolo' that Fiammetta, initially under the guise of Maria d’Angiò, makes her first full appearance in one of Boccaccio’s works. It is also (if we accept the postulation that the 'Filostrato' was written after the 'Filocolo') one of Boccaccio’s first uses of a framing device, a foundational element in the creation of the authorial persona. The object of examining the authorial persona within the opening and closing frame tales is to better understand the Certaldan’s position – during the earliest phase of his literary career –  towards authorship and authority, learned and unlearned texts, readership, and writing in the vernacular.

The thesis then considers the creation of authorial alter egos within the main narrative, that is, the tale of Florio and Biancifiore proper, and other metaliterary strategies, such as references to reading and writing, instances of storytelling, mises en abyme such as dreams and ekphrases. In other words, by self-reflexion, the study refers not only to the authorial persona of the frame tales, but also to metaliterary elements throughout the work, which highlight the themes of interpretation, misreading, and the relationship between fiction, truth and history.

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