Writing in Italy in the 14th century, Boccaccio is caught in the historical dichotomy between the blind adherence to the Church that permeated the Middle Ages and the emerging humanism that characterized the Renaissance. It is clear that Boccaccio chooses to look forward, embracing frivolity and offering fierce portraits of men and women of the church. He raises the issue of obscenity in his epilogue anticipating a response of moral objection to his stories. Although Boccaccio acknowledges in his epilogue that his stories can be perceived as amoral, he ultimately argues that morality is not the purpose of his book and that readers can avoid being offended. However, Boccaccio upholds some values ​​in his stories, namely a personal morality of action and the meaning of nonsense and humor in life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Boccaccio's epilogue is essentially a defense against the charge of obscenity in his work. First, it states that cases of obscenity are mild and do not make the work immoral. His occasional “insignificant indiscretion in speech,” he argues, is akin to the use of words that can have amoral connotations such as “mortar” and “sausage,” a practice he says is common in speech. He also attacks those who might have problems with his work, calling them "precious bigots, who weigh words rather than deeds, and are more concerned with appearing, than being, good" (005). This is significant because he attacks those who claim his stories have immoral values ​​by claiming that the attackers could be more immoral. He does this by saying that offended readers are superficial people who are more interested in the appearance of morality than in actual moral action. It is difficult not to consider that this may be a specific attack on the Church, given its many stories of religious people leading sinful private lives. He also compares his work to wine, fire, weapons and even the Bible, all of which are good for humans but also bad "if used for a bad purpose, they can cause multiple harms. And so, I say, it is with the my stories" (012). He then offers some pragmatic and perhaps superficial ways to avoid the problem, pointing out that those stories that might be offensive to a particular reader can simply be skipped since the stories are independent and disjointed. And "no one is deceived, each one carries on his forehead the epitome of what he hides in his bosom" (019). Up to this point it seems that Boccaccio is mainly telling his audience that obscenity is not important and can be avoided. Now she moves on to express the purpose of her work, contrasting it with more serious objectives and arguing that her audience is made up of women who pass the time. . There is also evidence at this point that his defense is superficial, in the sense that he doesn't actually believe that simply skipping over an offensive story makes his work harmless. In this way, the epilogue can be seen as a formality for Boccaccio and an opportunity for him to subtly name those who he believes are actually immoral. She says that her work was not written seriously nor intended to be (ironically) part of an academic study, rather "it has been to none but well-to-do women that I have offered my sorrows" (021). It is quite interesting that he claims that his work serves no intellectual purpose and is only intended to be read by women to pass the time. Boccaccio apparently does not mind having lowered his standards, as he does not consider the purpose of passing away women's time as intellectually degrading or offensive.Yet the reader gets the sense that Boccaccio is providing a dismissive response when he takes his claimed lack of seriousness in the work to a comical extreme: “I affirm that I am not of gravity; on the contrary I am so light that I float on the surface of the water; and considering that the sermons which the friars give, when they reprove the people for their sins, are today, for the most part, full of jests, cheerful presumptions and jests, I thought that such things would not displease the my stories, written, as they were, to banish the dumps of women. However, if they laugh too much because of this, they can easily be healed by the Lament of Jeremiah, the Passion of the Savior or the Lament of the Magdalene" (023-024). Furthermore, this is the first instance in which Boccaccio portrays people in the Church as potentially immoral. His defense seems superficial due to its exaggeration and comedy, and there may be a lack of sincerity implied in telling the reader to skip the lewd parts and just do it. he doesn't take his job seriously. And his reversal of these accusations may suggest that he has some problems with the idea of ​​morality. We have the feeling that while Boccaccio outwardly claims that this is a frivolous work, he may be attaching some sort of value to it. stories This forces us to examine specific stories for indications that Boccaccio had respect not only for morality but also had a purpose for his work other than a banal pastime. First, there is evidence that Boccaccio values ​​a vile type of work. morality in terms of human action in some stories. In a number of stories there are people who appear to be rewarded for leading a moral life or ultimately punished for leading an amoral life. These characters are rewarded or punished in their real life and not in the afterlife. In the Second Tale of the Fourth Day, a brother named Alberto receives public humiliation and is permanently confined after seducing a woman under the guise of being an angel. The Ninth Tale of the Fifth Day exemplifies this type of action-based morality. In this tale, a gentleman named Federigo falls in love with a beautiful and rich lady named Monna Giovanna. He spends his savings to court her without success, until, after giving up and living in the country, she asks for his beloved falcon as a favor for her sick son. Federigo, unaware of this request and having nothing else to serve her, has already served Giovanna his falcon for breakfast. In the end, thanks to his unwavering benevolence towards him, Giovanna marries Federigo to honor him. The morality illustrated by Federigo is unshakable despite his degraded circumstances, and he is ultimately rewarded for this morality. It is clear that this morality is not the result of faith or piety, but rather of simple ethical action. Likewise, Giovanna, justifying her marriage to poor Federigo, states "I would rather have a man without riches than riches without a man" (043). This layering echoes Boccaccio's claims against those "who weigh words rather than deeds, and are more concerned with appearing, than being, good" (005) discussed earlier, allowing us to assume that Boccaccio is indeed an advocate of this type of morality. Furthermore, Boccaccio tends to portray many of his characters who are part of the church as immoral because they take advantage of their status in the church. Friar Alberto, as previously mentioned, exploits his status as a priest to seduce a woman. Furthermore, he makes his lover believe that the Archangel Gabriel is in love with her and comes to her through her body. In this sense he directly uses the figures of the Church to help him sin. The First Tale of.