Eros and Evanescence in the <i>Decameron</i>: The Weave of Love, Time, and Memory

Abstract

This essay studies the interplay between the emotion of love and the sense of its transience, as the interplay is featured in the three authorial interventions of the Proem, the Introduction to Day 4, and the Conclusion. The author returns time and again to this interplay, emphasizing the role of memory throughout these interventions. While Boccaccio identifies eros as a guiding impulse for his story-telling and showcases sexual desire as a main theme of both the comic and tragic novelle, this study looks at the way the passages present love as highlighting the temporal nature of human existence, which, in its mortal finitude, relies on remembrance, especially the recollection of love’s transient sway, in order to foster a sensibility for life’s wholeness.
 The study’s approach is phenomenological. It examines the manner in which Boccaccio displays appearances—of character, mood, or circumstance—within a temporal frame. Phenomena surface and vanish in time, while being retained in memory. Above all in these three interventions Boccaccio reminds his readers to keep in view the timing of love, its absence and presence, as they become aware of their own ageing and mortality while traveling with the author through his narrative.