The birth of novella from the spirit of Aristotle

Abstract

Two phases of reflection upon novella can be distinguished in Сinquecento Italy. In the first half of the century, the short stories, of which “Decameron” remains the reference model, were treated as examples of high style (P. Bembo) or as phenomena of everyday literary life (B. Castiglione) and love precepts (L. A. Ridolfi). The form of the collection developed by Boccaccio became the experimental ground for writers and publishers. In the 1570s, attempts were made to create a canon of this kind based on the principles of Aristotle’s “Poetics” translated into volgare in 1549. The treatises of F. Sansovino, G. Bargagli and especially F. Bonciani give the novella the characteristics of a literary genre benefiting from its particular poetics. In Sansovino’s work, the short story is conceived as a “fable” containing moral truths; the author is a part of the tradition of imitation that dominated the Renaissance. Bargagli describes the story as an oral “game” the poetics of which is subordinated to the pleasure of the listeners. Bonciani was the first to include the genre of the short story in the “high literature” dating back to ancient times.