The Reception of the Works of Boccaccio in Estonia and His Novel Fiammetta

This paper provides a survey of the Estonian reception of Boccaccio’s oeuvre since its beginnings in the 18th century to the reception of the latest publication of the Estonian Decameron in 2004. As the translator of the second work by Boccaccio to be published in Estonian, The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta, I subsequently characterise a number of the major points of the reception of that particular book as well, both in the world and from the Estonian perspective. In the vein of expanding the understanding of and the Estonian reception of Boccaccio’s works as a whole, this article finally discusses and disputes a claim about the handling of tragic motifs in Boccaccio’s oeuvre in the chapter dedicated to Boccaccio of Erich Auerbach’s monograph Mimesis: the Representation of Reality in Western Literature