Don't let corona paranoia overwhelm you: Read humorous, smile-inducing literature to beat quarantine blues

Resorting to merriment and mirth at times like these may be considered by many to be impossible, not to mention inappropriate. But now that six intervening centuries ensure a dispassionate assessment, a look at the aftermath of another (and possibly the worst) pandemic in human history — the 14th century’s bubonic plague, or Black Death, that decimated Europe in particular — shows that laughter can be a good supplement, if not a medicine, during such crises.

Improbable as it seems, the height of that plague was also when the first European book to be later categorised as a comedy was written. Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio is a collection of 100 tales replete with wit, bawdy humour and pranks, told by seven women and three men sequestered in villa outside Florence to escape the Black Death. It tied in very well with a prevailing thought at the time among the clergy that the Biblical prescription ‘A merry heart doeth good like medicine’ (Proverbs 17:22) should be widely disseminated.

Today, the Florentine villa isolation has obvious similarities to current exhortations to practice ‘social distancing’ and self-imposed quarantine. Thousands of creative minds around the world now cordoned off from their normal activities can perhaps also use this time to produce similar smile-inducing literature to lighten these sombre times for us all.