Lecture: “Addressing the Reader in Medieval Literature. Three Major Italian Cases: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio”
Renzo Bragantini (Università di Roma “La Sapienza”)
A reception to follow.
Everyone is welcome and admission is free.
Please RSVP at italian.studies@utoronto.ca
By a close reading of the way the three authors address their readers, the lecture will focus particularly on Boccaccioʼs Decameron. Whilst being himself a great admirer of his two predecessors, Boccaccio, addressing his reader, chooses a different path. He puts the reader at the center of the book, thus making him the only responsible for a correct use of his masterpiece.
Renzo Bragantini (born in Venice, 1945) is Full Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Rome, “Sapienza”. He has been appointed in several occasions as Visiting Professor by American Universities (Yale, UCLA, Johns Hopkins). He has written extensively on Italian Literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His interests also encompass other European fields, like English and German Literatures.