The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio | Fifth Day, Fourth Story

Course Hero Literature Instructor Russell Jaffe provides an in-depth summary and analysis of Fifth Day, Fourth Story from Giovanni Boccaccio's short story collection The Decameron.


Written during the mid-14th century outbreak of the Black Death, the tales in the collection The Decameron are set in frame narrative. A group of people waiting out the plague in a villa swaps stories to pass the time.

They amuse themselves by anointing each person king or queen for a day, choose a theme and that person and the other nine members of the group supplies a related parable.

The wide array of stories very from comical to dark, from uplifting to critical. Each offers insights into the human condition, providing a rich tapestry from which later writers have frequently drawn.

Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron was written 1349-53. Boccaccio was one of the great writers of the Italian Renaissance. The Decameron is among the most influential and widely cited works of Western prose. His works influenced other writers like Shakespeare, Chaucer, Keats and Longfellow.

The short story collection The Decameron contains many important themes including religion, as The Catholic Church and its clergy hold tremendous power; deceit, as many characters practice the art of deception to get their way; love, as true love is deep and lasting, while lust is fleeting; and class, as the social hierarchy shifts in the Middle Ages with the growing merchant class. Symbols include gardens/growth and fortune/wheel of fortune.


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