Some of the citizens of the last remnants of the Inca empire probably read Don Quixote, as it was published and immediately shipped to the Americas in hopes of finding a better price. The ship was lost, and about seventy copies made it to Cuzco!
The Decameron was subtitled “Prince Galehaut” (no relation to Galahad), a knight who was supposedly friendly with Sir Lancelot but an enemy of King Arthur; he is, it’s said, the one who introduced Lancelot to Guinevere, kicking off the affair that eventually tore down Camelot.
William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well is an adaptation of Neifile’s novella from day three of The Decameron, about Giletta di Narbona.
Jonathan Swift likewise adapted a novella from The Decameron, as A Tale of a Tub in 1704. He also may have written Gulliver’s Travels to rebut Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
The use of “novel” as “new, atypical, unprecedented” also came from the Latin “Novellus,” but rather than going from Latin to Italian to French, it came to French directly from Latin.
Other fun side notes:
Some of the citizens of the last remnants of the Inca empire probably read Don Quixote, as it was published and immediately shipped to the Americas in hopes of finding a better price. The ship was lost, and about seventy copies made it to Cuzco!
The Decameron was subtitled “Prince Galehaut” (no relation to Galahad), a knight who was supposedly friendly with Sir Lancelot but an enemy of King Arthur; he is, it’s said, the one who introduced Lancelot to Guinevere, kicking off the affair that eventually tore down Camelot.
William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well is an adaptation of Neifile’s novella from day three of The Decameron, about Giletta di Narbona.
Jonathan Swift likewise adapted a novella from The Decameron, as A Tale of a Tub in 1704. He also may have written Gulliver’s Travels to rebut Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
The use of “novel” as “new, atypical, unprecedented” also came from the Latin “Novellus,” but rather than going from Latin to Italian to French, it came to French directly from Latin.