Confession and Social Space in the <i>Decameron</i>

Abstract

This essay argues that confession in the Decameron is a liminal activity, which affords characters and readers a milieu removed from the space of society in which transformation and ultimately a temporary moment of transcendence of the secular world (almost a return to paradise) are achieved. In the tales of the Decameron in which confession is central to the narrative (novelle I.1, III.3, and VII.5), the liminal is a locus of trickery. Boccaccio subverts the notion of spiritual transcendence traditionally associated with the sacrament of confession and playfully substitutes the profane and the divine for each other. The parallels these stories establish between confession as a liminal activity and reading the Decameron suggests that Boccaccio’s masterpiece has the potential to transform its public in social but not necessarily metaphysical ways.