Giovanni Boccaccios Olympia: introductory study, translation and notes

Abstract

The present project aims at providing a study of the poem Olympia by Giovanni Boccaccio, as well as its translation from Latin into Portuguese followed by explanatory notes. Dating from c. 1361, and included in the collection Buccolicum Carmen, Olympia is fundamentally presented as an eclogue, thus adopting in its composition certain conventions typical of the pastoral genre, as consolidated since Antiquity. Nevertheless, from the reading of the poem, it is possible to assume that, in spite of being displayed as an eclogue, Olympia also encompasses elements from other poetic genres: either those characteristic of the accounts of dreams and visions - which endured throughout the Middle Ages, or those peculiar to the Latin elegy or epic - remarkable in the Ancient legacy. In fact, in what concerns the last genre, a close relationship may be observed between, on the one hand, the description of the heavenly paradise given by Boccaccio in the mentioned poem and, on the other hand, the description of the Elysian Fields as presented by Virgil in Aen. 6, 637ff. Based on this observation, besides proposing an inedited translation of the poem into Portuguese, this project intends to explore the presumed bond between the Virgilian bucolic and epic texts and the Boccaccian poem, particularly focusing on the associations between the Christian paradise of Olympia and the Virgilian depiction of the Elysian Fields. (AU)