How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph), with the exception of Part V, which runs (Part#. "Short Title". Paragraph). Part V has no numbered chapters—only title headings.
Quote #4
The impression Kristyna created against the backdrop of a small town, with its butchers, mechanics, and pensioners, was entirely different in Prague, the city of pretty students and hairdressers. With her ridiculous beads and her discreet gold tooth...she seemed to personify the negation of that youthful feminine beauty in jeans who had been cruelly rejecting him for months. (V. "Compromise". 2)
Kristyna's desirability drops several notches when she's taken out of her context—from the student's point of view, anyway. Back home, her version of femininity is charming, but in Prague, where the student can view her in comparison to other Prague women, she looks like a country bumpkin. The issue is never really with Kristyna's beauty or manners; it's with the student's state of mind.
Quote #5
"Misogynists don't despise women. Misogynists don't like femininity. Men have always been divided into two categories. Worshipers of women, otherwise known as poets, and misogynists, or, more accurately, gynophobes. Worshipers revere traditional feminine values such as feelings, the home, motherhood, fertility, sacred flashes of hysteria, and the divine voice of nature within us, while in misogynists or gynophobes these values inspire a touch of terror." (V. "Boccaccio". 5)
Boccaccio wants the other poets to understand that he's not hating on women; he's just fed up with conventional ideas of femininity. In his mind, to be a misogynist is to be a champion and true lover of women; he wants to free femininity from the stupid stereotypical traits that go along with it. His comment also has a lot to do with poetry and the language of female worship, which goes along with love verses. Boccaccio isn't into that. At all.
Quote #6
"She said to me, and it was like a prayer, like a litany, 'I'm a simple girl, I'm quite an ordinary girl, I have nothing to offer you, but I came here because I was sent by love, I came'—and now she squeezed my hand very hard—'so that you'll know what real love is, so that you'll experience it once in your life.'" (V. "Insults". 6)
Petrarch proves himself the total opposite of Boccaccio with his ridiculous and pretty appalling story of the female student who appears at his home to declare her love for him—in front of his beautiful wife. Boccaccio calls Petrarch out on this romanticized version of a bungled love affair, accusing Petrarch of being a "worshiper": one of those men who idolize stereotypically feminine behavior and traits.