『데카메론』 속 문학적 상상력과 르네상스

Abstract

『Decameron』, a novel in which the background of the disastrous black plague, the Middle Ages that was coming to an end and the Renaissance phenomena which already arrived, are embodied by Boccaccio's brilliant literary imagination, was evaluated as a historical record about all kinds of contemporary human lives; a literary historical treasury for the next generation's unlimited artistic imagination; and the model for European prose novel. The black plague, the background of the work, which was one of the worst accidents taking the lives of innumerable European people in the 14th century, across the human history, could not but have serious effects on the whole Europe including politics, economy, society, community, philosophy, science, art, etc. People experienced the fact that religion which had been a dominant base of their lives could not relieve them in the face of the horrible epidemic, so God-centered medieval values could no longer exert its dominant force. This period, however, was the cross point between the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as the Renaissance atmosphere was full-fledged, which had been gradually grown. Although it may be important to summarize the magnitude of Renaissance, it can be largely summarized into two aspects based on common interpretations and modalities: one is that there were the historical transitional phenomena between Renaissance and the Middle Ages; another is that it was the regeneration and revival of the ancient Greek and Roman civilization in the field of scholarship and culture, including art, music, literature, philosophy, science, architecture, mathematics, etc., as the entire movement across the European society, as well as a new historical wave which brought about huge changes across economy, society and politics inside and outside Europe. This paper aims to examine how such two aspects were condensed in 『Decameron』 via Boccaccio's literary imagination. First, it attempted to arrange literary creative strategies adopted by Boccaccio who used the black plague as a medium. Although Renaissance, the new compelling wave, already permeated the whole society, the formal forces were people with Christian and God-centered way of thinking, which still provided the foundation of their lives. In 『Decameron』, there are, therefore, several parts in which Boccaccio makes an effort to explain his ‘creative intention’ and ‘targeted readers’ in detail by directly intervening in the text. His hidden intention may be to ingeniously avoid blames from and conflicts with the public including the contemporary dominant forces. Second, it also aims to examine the other aspect of Renaissance, which shows the 'rediscovery of classics' and the 'realistic and actual description of human life', as the revival of the ancient Greek and Roman culture and a new historical wave. The stories contained in 『Decameron』 were not freshly created by Boccaccio, but reborn as works to which the meanings of the contemporary historical wave were 'newly' granted by exploring and borrowing classic ones which had been previously transmitted and adding literary imagination to them. Next, although the ancient Greek and Roman culture was basically focused on 'human beings', the former's description had an ideal tendency, while the latter's description had realistic, actual, practical and recreational tendency. 『Decameron』 combines each tendency of both cultures. 『Decameron』's eye is, therefore, directed toward human beings, while it comically describes secular and blatant reality of all sorts of forms and figures. Its description is thus characterized by the appreciation of diversity, promotion of practical benefit, sarcasms about corruption, degradation and hypocrisy of the Christian forces, and females' pursuit of sexual desire. This is highly differentiated from the God-centered perspective stressing the medieval piety, sacredness and solemnity.