This is a project that is based on the notion that we can use Digital Humanities to help us determine whether or not The Decameron is a feminist work. Although it's difficult to quantify exactly what makes a work "feminist" we believe that by marking up the text in a way that will help us quantify the behavior of the characters. Specifically, we plan on contrasting the behavior of the men against the behavior of the women. We say "behavior" because we are marking up both actions and speech.
This project was primariliy inspired by The Decameron's reputation for being a so called "raunchy" icand "explit" text as well as frequently being called a "feminist" one. We wondered whether there was any correlation between the sexually explicit content of The Decameron and it's frequent classification as a feminist text. Is The Decameron's treatment of women actually progressive, or is the author merely applying typical male behavior and gags to women and therefore the women are "empowered"?
These were the questions we asked ourselves as we began our research on The Decameron.
For those who may not be familiar, the Decameron is a collection of short stories written by Giovanni Boccaccio, and were originally in Italian. There are a hundred stories in total, and they are broken up into ten "days" and each day ten different stories are told. Despite the sexual and occassionally light hearted spirit of the stories, the stories date back to the Fourteenth Century and take place during the time of the Black Death.