«Allí se oyen cantar los pajarillos»: el espacio utópico y las mujeres en el Decamerón

Abstract

This essay aims to explore the space that arises in the Decameron when ten young women and men flee to the countryside to indulge in storytelling as a way of escaping Florence’s plague. This space could be thought of as «utopian» because of its Arcadian features and also because it provides the group with a centre in order to construct itself as a «small society» which seems to oppose in many ways the Florentine «big society». Perhaps one of the most interesting peculiarities of this space is the role played by women within it. The (virtually endless) possibilities opened by this space allow Boccaccio’s women to speak for themselves and contest the misogyny of the dominant discourses of the time.