Pandemic fiction as therapeutic play: The New York Times Magazine’sThe Decameron Project(2020)

Abstract

This article explores the therapeutic potential of narrative fiction during a global health crisis. We focus on The Decameron Project (2020), a collection of short fiction by writers from around the world, commissioned by the New York Times Magazine. The Decameron Project references the narrative framework established by Giovanni Boccaccio in the mid-14th century, when the Black Death devastated Europe. Drawing on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and principles of bibliotherapy employed since the Middle Ages, we argue that The Decameron Project offers strategies to simultaneously confront and contain the anxious mind. Storytelling, according to both Boccaccio and to the editors of The Decameron Project, is not merely a source of distraction but a means of survival.

From plague to plague: COVID‐19 and the New Decameron(s)

“…The Decameron is probably the first and most famous bibliotherapeutic “treatment of the life‐saving potential of narrative in the medieval way” (Downes and Römhild, 2022: 49) 10. However, with two exceptions, none of the stories mention the plague and benefit from the power of testimony.…”

“…2020Significantly, the final story is “One Thing” by Edwidge Danticat, in which the husband of the protagonist is in a coma and on a respirator. For an analysis of the story, see Downes and Römhild (2022: 45–61).…”

Framings, or mind the décalage!

“…The resemblance between the shadow of the Black Death looming over Boccaccio's work and the one threatening our reality is more than blatant; it "speaks to the appeal of history in times of crisis" (Downes and Römhild 2022: 46). Insofar as it has been argued that pandemic fiction represented a trauma response, allowing people to deal with the tragic contingency (Downes andRömhild 2022, Angeletti 2023). Nonetheless, as for our purpose, the most interesting effect of all the Decameron-ish experiences is that they brought the essential role of its cornice to light.…”