The Wheel of Fortune
The image of the goddess (or semi-divine character) Fortuna and her rota fortunae (that's "wheel of fortune" to us) is a traditional literary symbol from classical literature. From rhetoricians l...
Hortus Conclusus
Shmoop loves throwing Latin terms at you: it's so...scholarly. It builds character. And in this case, it also can't be avoided. The idea of the hortus conclusus as a literary image has biblical or...
Hearts
We all know what hearts generally signify: valentines, romantic love, fidelity and passion. But Boccaccio uses the image of the heart in a far more complex and sinister way in some of the tragic st...
Corpses
While we do see some actual corpses in The Decameron (who can forget hilarious moments like Andreuccio in the tomb with the dead archbishop or Martellino being placed on top of the saintly dead Ar...
Women
With the exception of Fortune, most of women in the stories aren't symbols. They're very real, down-to-earth, hugely flawed people, occupying very mundane, literal roles. In the Prologue, Boccaccio...
Men
We here at Shmoop believe in equal opportunity, so there's no way we're going to leave the men folk out of symbolic interpretation. Boccaccio sends three men along on the trip with the troop of sev...