Interesting! I would not have guessed that “novella” predated “novel”. But it seems that the modern English meaning of “novella” being a story with a length in between a novel and a short story is pretty different from the older Latin and Italian meanings. I’m going to imagine there was another process where “novella” picked up that specific meaning.
It happens I watched The Decameron series on Netflix recently, which was entertaining. I’m sure it’s very different from the original book - probably only sharing the setting, and some character names.
Interesting! I would not have guessed that “novella” predated “novel”. But it seems that the modern English meaning of “novella” being a story with a length in between a novel and a short story is pretty different from the older Latin and Italian meanings. I’m going to imagine there was another process where “novella” picked up that specific meaning.
It happens I watched The Decameron series on Netflix recently, which was entertaining. I’m sure it’s very different from the original book - probably only sharing the setting, and some character names.
It’s interesting how it was kind of a return to the original definition of the word!
And I know almost nothing about The Decameron, except as a node in the story of the word “novel,” so I wouldn’t know. I’ll have to check it out!