A HUMAN THING IS TO LAUGH. A POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION OF THE THEME OF LAUGHTER IN NOVELLAS FROM BOCCACCIO TO GRAZZINI

Abstract

In this article we aim to analyze the laughing character in late medieval and renaissance
novellas, which is understood as a narrative strategy of the author, i.e. his voluntary and
conscious action intended to offer an interpr etative expedient for the correct understanding
of the narrative. Starting from the first novella in Decameron, considered programmatic in
various aspects, other novellas from the Decameron will be included in the diachronic
analysis, as well as those writ ten by Sacchetti, Salernitano and Grazzini. Since its birth and
subsequent codification, the novella had a double value: its connection with the oral
tradition implied direct contact with the public, themes of the moment or current social
interest, wit and promptness of speech; on the other hand, the literary diegesis elaborated
within the rules of the artes dicendi et narrandi was enriched by the individual preparation
and singular style of the author. The literary novella is therefore the mirror of this
c ommunicative act par excellence , because it represents its totality and completeness; the
extradiegetic and metadiegetic excursus provided not only descriptions of the place, time,
occasion and participants of the narrative event, but also the consideratio ns on the value
and meaning of the work offered by the author himself or of the author as the second
narrator. Consequently, the narrator's reaction to the story or the character's reaction to the
narrated event that is at the origin of the story should be in line with the communicative
message transmitted in it; the laughing narrator/character becomes the projection of the
ideal narrative audience. The first theoretical treatises on the novella define it as a genre
that imitates an ugly action according to the principles of ridiculousness in order to
entertain. The comical effect is achieved by imitating the actions ( res ) or transmitting the
words of others. Laughing at obscenity, religious hypocrisy or a joke is an indication of a
critical society, capable of considering, measuring and accepting its own vices in order to
be able to reproach them. Following the same logic, the absence of these themes together
with the consequent ostracism of laughter from the literary space, denotes both censorship
and socia l and moral crisis.