Download or read book The Elegy of Madonna Fiammetta Sent by Her to Women in Love written by Giovanni Boccaccio and published by Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. This book was released on 1992 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Elegy of Madonna Fiammetta is narrated by a woman who recounts her love affair with a young man she calls Panfilo and his betrayal of her. Medieval works depict courtly love as a disease suffered by upper-class men; the Elegy depicts the process of falling in love from the woman's point of view. It is important both in its own right as a literary work and because of its authorial feminism; Boccaccio makes us appreciate both the folly of the narrator and the treachery of Panfilo and (by extension) of all men. In addition, it is a precursor of the psychological and epistolary novels and is of importance in the history of prose fiction.