Pandemia, teatro

Abstract

While paying attention to ‘comic’ (literary, dramatic) texts from the past as well as from the present, this essay studies the relationship between epidemics – often interpreted, in the history of humanity and of literature, with the plague – and theater, especially comedy, with its various forms and meanings. Keeping this relationship in mind, Boccaccio’s Decameron is read in the light of important pages written by ancient authors and modern critics, analyzing its comic and theatrical nature down to its very end, that is its underlaying aim: the reconstruction of the world after the pandemic tragedy – a very ambitious and difficult aim, even more so facing the crisis currently experienced by theatre itself.

Keywords

• theatre
• comedy
• decameron
• italian literature
• contamination
• plague
• epidemic