The priest’s breeches (Decameron IX 2)

The book chapter offers a close reading of the rhetorical and narrative strategies in Decameron, IX 2, with a focus on the interplay of three different textual aspects: first, the forms and functions of humor; secondly, the theme of hypocrisy, which Boccaccio presents through the behavior of the protagonist/antagonist pair; thirdly, the links with other tales in the overall work. The divergent quality of humor is one of the criteria that shape the close-knit web of connections between this novella and other tales in the Decameron. In Dec. IX 2, particularly, humor assumes both moral and intellective dimensions. On the moral side, the pleasure of laughter is connected to an anti-hierarchical strain and to the prevalence of erotic desire over social behaviors aimed at contrasting the natural law that desire embodies. On the other, laughter is to be seen as the pleasure which springs from the sudden recognition of a truth concealed beneath appearances, a revelation which, in Dec. IX 2, is not ascribable to human cognitive abilities but to the whims of fortune.