The Ethical Dimension of the Decameron by Marilyn Migiel (review)

Marilyn Migiel’s The Ethical Dimension of the Decameron is a new investigation of the varied relationships between the Decameron and its readers, between the Author and his characters, and between translators and the intentionality of the text. Adding to the work of numerous Boccaccio scholars and translators of the past century, Migiel carefully reconsiders key passages of some of the Decameron’s most famous stories (and other, lesser-studied ones) in order to present inherent problems in modern readers’ methods of interpretation. Although she examines how every individual reading of the text is colored by personal biases and assumptions, Migiel denies taking a prescriptive approach to the ethics of Decameron; “Rather,” she writes, “I examine how Boccaccio’s narrators, translators, and readers establish the ethical questions about how we ought to live, and I ask readers to consider the implications of such choices” (5).

Over the course of eight chapters, Migiel demonstrates—mostly through close comparisons of translations by John Florio, W. K. Kelly, J. M. Rigg, and Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella, among others—how the misperception of even one word can set off a chain reaction of misinterpretations, leading readers to believe, in more than one case, that the wrong character is culpable of a crime when another could be found guilty instead. Distancing herself a bit from the tale of Griselda, which is usually the “linchpin” of ethical studies of the Decameron, Migiel considers stories such as that of Ferondo in Purgatory and of Maestro Alberto in order to show to readers minute aspects of the stories they may have initially missed, which could ultimately change the way they understand the narration. By attempting to tease out every possible shade of meaning in the words that Boccaccio chooses, Migiel opens ample room for newer, more nuanced conversation regarding our connections to the characters in the Decameron and to the text itself.

Migiel’s first chapter, “Wanted: Translators of the Decameron’s Moral and Ethical Complexities,” focuses on the tendencies of readers to cling to now-outdated, “deeply entrenched ideological views of the Decameron that hinder an accurate understanding of its ethical project” (18-19). These views, such as the idea that the Decameron’s sole objective is that of entertainment, or that every speech act has a singular purpose, or even considerations of the fixity of gender roles within the text, should all be re-examined, she says. When readers become too focused on the same way of reading the Decameron, they miss the didactic benefits of the text and lose out on lessons on how to live well. The Decameron is constantly testing us—often so subtly that we do not know we are being tested—and Migiel claims that we would be wise to notice the ways in which Boccaccio forces us to rethink our preconceived notions of the text and constantly fine-tune them as much as possible.

Throughout the following chapters Migiel draws both from other critics and from her seminal 2003 work, A Rhetoric of the Decameron, to draw attention to the “sex wars” that the Decameron wages and to problems in the moral analyses of many of its tales. Importantly, she notes that many readers, anxious to judge the motivations of a female character, tend to see her needs as purely sexual and discount any other ones, instead of looking more carefully at the evidence that her words convey. Migiel reminds us that, as modern readers, we must act more like lawyers, taking into account both “questionable logic” and “inexact evidence,” both on the part of the storytellers and of the characters themselves, but also on the part of translators—especially when suspicion regarding a female character’s motives comes into play. We must be careful not to fall into the same trap as pre-modern readers who, for example, “were predisposed to notice female imperfection, particularly if falsehood and fraudulence were involved” (74).

Another trap Migiel says we should take care to avoid is that of misinterpreting Boccaccio’s...