Decameron Project, 2020
The time of Covid is not the time of The Decameron -- or so we at CWC dearly hoped when we gathered (over Zoom) for our annual Clockhouse Writer's Conference & Retreat. In the midst of our own time's pandemic, though, we did look back with some recognition and a growing sense of foreboding, at The Decameron’s documentation of its plague-time horrors.
Boccaccio’s plague lasted from 1346 to 1353 -- a horrific seven years -- and the death toll in his beloved Florence was perhaps three of every five inhabitants. Nonetheless, Boccaccio, surveying the plague’s death toll on his city, and the near death of civility, culture and the common good in Florence, created fictional characters who sought story-telling relief. The Decameron not only survived the plague in its own right, but influenced other works such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and a number of our own age's filmmakers.
And so, learning from the lesson of The Decameron's creation, deciding to take its echo one step further, and in an attempt to offer our own Covid-time response, we all started our own pandemic-time stories during the 2020 CWC&R. Scroll below, and you'll find links to them: Some will be printed here in full, and will be linked to their appearance in various literary journals, but all will have been begun during our virtual retreat. And we hope that by the time you read these, we'll all be gathering in person once again!
Boccaccio’s plague lasted from 1346 to 1353 -- a horrific seven years -- and the death toll in his beloved Florence was perhaps three of every five inhabitants. Nonetheless, Boccaccio, surveying the plague’s death toll on his city, and the near death of civility, culture and the common good in Florence, created fictional characters who sought story-telling relief. The Decameron not only survived the plague in its own right, but influenced other works such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and a number of our own age's filmmakers.
And so, learning from the lesson of The Decameron's creation, deciding to take its echo one step further, and in an attempt to offer our own Covid-time response, we all started our own pandemic-time stories during the 2020 CWC&R. Scroll below, and you'll find links to them: Some will be printed here in full, and will be linked to their appearance in various literary journals, but all will have been begun during our virtual retreat. And we hope that by the time you read these, we'll all be gathering in person once again!
