De Casibus Tragödie
| De casibus virorum illustrium | |
|---|---|
| On the Fates of Famous Men | |
| Author(s) | Giovanni Boccaccio |
| Language | Latin |
| Date | 1355–1374 |
| Provenance | Certaldo |
| Genre | De viris illustribus |
De casibus virorum illustrium (On the Fates of Famous Men) is a work of 56 biographies in Latinprose composed by the Florentine poet Giovanni Boccaccio of Certaldo in the form of moral stories of the falls of famous people, similar to his work of 106 biographies De Mulieribus Claris.
- A dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. The branch of the drama that is concerned with this form of composition.
- And tyranny in the Amoretti as a de casibustragedy staged by the sonneteer to humble his mistress—a method countered by her insistence on a Platonic view of the passions in which resistance to emotion is the sign of moral spectatorship.
Overview[edit]
The Mirror is based on John Lydgate?s Fall of Princes (ca. 1431?39), itself a translation of Boccaccio?s De casibus virorum illustrium (ca. 1358) by way of Laurent de Premierfait?s French prose.
De casibus is an encyclopedia of historical biography and a part of the classical tradition of historiography. It deals with the fortunes and calamities of famous people starting with the biblical Adam, going to mythological and ancient people, then to people of Boccaccio's own time in the fourteenth century.[1] The work was so successful it spawned what has been referred to as the De casibus tradition,[2] influencing many other famous authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, and Laurent de Premierfait.[3] De casibus also inspired character figures in works like The Canterbury Tales,[4]The Monk's Tale,[5] the Fall of Princes (c. 1438),[6]Des cas de nobles hommes et femmes (c. 1409),[7] and Caida de principles (a fifteenth-century Spanish collection), and A Mirror for Magistrates (a very popular sixteenth-century continuation written by William Baldwin and others).[8]
Development[edit]
Boccaccio wrote the core of his work from about 1355 to 1360 with revisions and modifications up to 1374. For almost four hundred years this work was the better known of his material. The forceful written periodic Latin work was far more widely read then the now famous vernacularTuscan/Italian tales of Decameron.[9] The Renaissance period saw the secular biography development which was spearheaded partly by the success of this work being a stimulus and driving force of the new biography-moral genre.
Purpose[edit]
Boccaccio's perspective focuses on the disastro awaiting all who are too favoured by luck and on the inevitable catastrophes awaiting those with great fortune.[10] He offers a moral commentary on overcoming misfortune by adhering to virtue through a moral God's world. Here the monastic chronicle tradition combines with the classical ideas of Senecan tragedy.
Content[edit]
De casibus stems from the tradition of exemplary literature works about famous people. It showed with the lives of these people that it was not only biographies, but also snapshots of their moral virtues.[11] Boccaccio relates biographies of famous people who were at the height of happiness and fell to misfortune when they least expected it. This sad event is sometimes referred to as a 'de casibus tragedy' after this work. William Shakespeare created characters based on this phenomenon, as did Christopher Marlowe.[12]
Lives recounted[edit]
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In order, directly translated from Latin.[13]
Book One[edit]
- Thyestes and Atreus
- Priam, King of Troy, and his wife Hecuba
Book Two[edit]
Book Three[edit]
- Tarquinius the Great, King of the Romans
- Xerxes I, King of the Persians
- Alcibiades the Athenian
- Hannibal of Carthage
Book Four[edit]
- Polycrates, tyrant of Samos
- Callisthenes the Philosopher
- Alexander of Egypt
- Darius, King of the Persians
- Eumenes, ruler of Cappadocia and Paphlagonia
- Olympias, Queen of Macedonia
- Agathocles, King of Sicily
- Arsinoe, Queen of Macedonia
- Pyrrhus, King of Egypt
- Arsinoe, Queen of Crete
Book Five[edit]
- Seleucus and Anthiocus, Kings of Asia and Syria
- Syphax, King of Numidia
- Anthiocus the Greater, King of Asia and Syria
- Hannibal, leader of Carthage
- Prusia, King of Bithynia
- Perseus, King of Macedonia
- Alexander Balas, King of Syria
- Demetrius, King of Syria
- Alxander Zebenna, King of Syria
- Jugurtha, King of the Numidians
Book Six[edit]
- Marcus Antonius the Triumvir and Cleopatra
Book Seven[edit]
- Tiberius Caesar, Gauis Caligula and Valeria Messalina
Book Eight[edit]
- Francesco Petrarch, the most illustrious author
- Valerian Augustus, the Roman Emperor
- Diocletian, the Roman Emperor
- Maximian Hercules, the Western Roman Emperor
- King Arthur of the Bretons
- Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards
Book Nine[edit]
- Maurice, Roman emperor
- Gisulf II of Friuli and Romilda
- Andronikos I Komnenos and Isaac II Angelos
- Philip IV of France and his sons
- Philippa of Catania (and her husband, Raimondo de' Cabanni)
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Primary sources[edit]
- Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes translated from Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustribus by Laurent de Premierfait (1400) [14][15][16]
- Tutte le Opere de Giovanni Boccaccio ed., Vittore Branca (Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1964)
- The Fates of Illustrious Men, trans. Louis Brewer Hall (New York, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1965)
Secondary sources[edit]
- Miscellanea di Studi e Ricerche sul Quattrecento francese, ed., F. Simone (Turin: Giappichelli, 1966)
- Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes ed., Patricia May Gathercole, Chapel Hill - University of North Carolina (1968)
Related references[edit]
- Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405)
- Egan, Margarita trans. The Vidas of the Troubadours, New York, Garland (1984)
- Joinville, Jehan de Vie de saint Louis, ed., Noel L. Corbert. Sherbrook Naoman (1977)
- Richards, Earl Jeffery trans. The Book of the City of Ladies, New York, Persea (1982)
- Lalande, Denis, ed., Le livre des fais du bon messiere Jehan le Maingre, dit Bouciquaut Geneva: Droz (1985)
Footnotes[edit]
- ^History of Tragedy
- ^Narrative, Authority, and Power: The Medieval Exemplum and the Chaucerian by Larry Scanlon, p. 119, Cambridge University Press (1994), ISBN0-521-04425-1
- ^Alan Coates, et al., A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 596-617. ISBN0-19-951373-2
- ^Chaucer's influences
- ^JSTOR: The Mediaeval Setting of Chaucer's Monk's Tale
- ^Richard A. Dwyer, 'Arthur's Stellification in the Fall of Princes' Philological Quarterly, 57 (1978), pp. 155-171
- ^The Literary Encyclopedia
- ^Vittorio Zaccaria, Introduzione, in Giovanni Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium volume 9 of Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio under guidance of Pier Giorgio Ricci and Vittorio Zaccaria, ed. Vittore Branca, 12 volumes I Classici Mondadori (Milan:Arnoldo Mondadori editor, 1983)
- ^Louis Brewer Hall, 'Introduction,' De casibus illustrium virorum (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1962), v.
- ^De casibus virorum illustrium (work by Boccaccio) -- Britannica
- ^Medieval France: An Encyclopedia By William W. Kibler, p. 129, Routledge Publisher (1995), Paris, ISBN0-8240-4444-4
- ^'Medieval tragedy'. Archived from the original on 2010-03-13. Retrieved 2007-12-24.
- ^Giovanni Boccaccio, Tutte le opere Vol. 9: De casibus virorum illustrium ed. trans. V. Zaccarria (La Scuola: Mondadori, 1983).
- ^Laurent de Premierfait: The Translator of Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium
- ^The Manuscripts of Laurent de Premierfait's 'Du Cas des Nobles' (Boccaccio's 'De Casibus Virorum Illustrium')
- ^The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism - Cambridge University
External links[edit]
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Comparative Drama is a scholarly journal devoted to studies international in spirit and interdisciplinary in scope. Founded over forty-five years ago by English professors at Western Michigan University, the journal has earned recognition from the academic community worldwide and continues to maintain the standard of excellence set by its founders. In keeping with our philosophy of interdisciplinarity, internationality, and inclusiveness, we publish a range of scholarly perspectives on drama from the ancient past to the postmodern present, from traditional to experimental, written by established as well as emerging scholars. Our aims are to generate provocative and innovative views of an existing corpus, to provide a forum for the discussion of dramatic works previously marginalized or omitted from the literary canon, and to encourage the use of archival materials.
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Comparative Drama is a scholarly journal devoted to studies international in spirit and interdisciplinary in scope. Founded over forty-five years ago by English professors at Western Michigan University, the journal has earned recognition from the academic community worldwide and continues to maintain the standard of excellence set by its founders. In keeping with our philosophy of interdisciplinarity, internationality, and inclusiveness, we publish a range of scholarly perspectives on drama from the ancient past to the postmodern present, from traditional to experimental, written by established as well as emerging scholars. Our aims are to generate provocative and innovative views of an existing corpus, to provide a forum for the discussion of dramatic works previously marginalized or omitted from the literary canon, and to encourage the use of archival materials.
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