Finding Catharsis in the Pandemic: Reading Greek Tragedy Online

In Boccaccio’s Decameron, wealthy plague refugees tell each other stories as a distraction from anxiety and boredom. At the beginning, one voice marks the advantage of tales over games, declaring, “we should tell stories, for even though just one person is doing the talking, the others will have the pleasure of listening.” This call resonates with our experience of the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. Yet, where Boccaccio’s nobles found themselves sheltering together on the road, many of us spent the COVID pandemic alone, connected virtually through technologies inconceivable to Boccaccio.