The Horrid Beginning: Boccaccio’s Decameron as Secular Archetype of Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

ABSTRACT Dennis Perry defines the apocalypse as the breaking up of the predictable universe: the world as we know it starts collapsing, and so does the scale of values everyone relies on. Apocalypse is therefore a massive change of customs, of parameters, of language. These are the very same changes Boccaccio depicted in his collection of novellas: those of a world that was dealing with a plague pandemic during a crucial moment of transition. By using textual evidence, with a particular focus on The Walking Dead – both Robert Kirkman’s comic book (2003–present) and Frank Darabont’s TV series (2010–present) – I show that defining the Decameron as the secular archetype of post-apocalyptic fiction is not a stretch, and that the theme of social reconstruction is of primary importance in Boccaccio’s book, as much as it is crucial in modern apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literature and cinema.