Sharp 1 Petrarch (1304-1374), Italian poet and humanist, who is considered the first modern poet. His perfection of the sonnet form later influenced such English poets as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and Edmund Spenser. His wide knowledge of the classical authors and his restoration of the classical Latin language earned him his reputation as the first great humanist; but he also played an important role in the development of Italian as a literary language. Petrarch was born in Arezzo. In 1312 his family moved to Avignon, France. Petrarch took minor orders in the church about 1330.
In 1327 he first saw Laura (probably Laure de Noves), whose name he was to immortalize in his lyrics and who inspired him with a passion that has become proverbial for its constancy and purity. Petrarch wrote in Latin and in Italian. His Latin works include “Africa” (1338-1342), an epic poem about the Roman conqueror Scipio Africanus, and Concerning Famous Men (1338), a series of biographies. His vast collection of letters is important for its historical and biographical details. Petrarch’s most famous work is the collection of Italian verses, Rime in vita e morta di Madonna Laura (after 1327) translated into English as Petrarch’s Sonnets. Almost all of these sonnets and odes are inspired by Petrarch’s unrequited passion for Laura (web) Known as “Italy’s greatest lyric poet” (Musa) Petrarch is a master of the sonnet tradition alongside his countryman Dante.
The Essay on On The Sonnet John Keats And William Wordsworth
John Keats and William Wordsworth ironically wrote two sonnets about the sonnet with contrasting attitudes. Both authors have different ideas and feelings about the constraints imposed on the poet by the sonnet form. Keats, although he feels negatively about the constraints imposed by the sonnet format, he writes the sonnet in his own creative unidentifiable form. Wordsworth however, tells the ...
The sonnets of Petrarch Sharp 2 helped define the conventional sonnet form; that is, fourteen lines divided into an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines) with the rhyme scheme following the pattern- -abba abba cde cde, or, aba a bab cde dce; although, there are variations in his sonnets (Tomlinson, 3) “his language is most simple, and his meaning most direct. He goes straight to his object and clothes it in the simplest words, and with little or no inversion.” (Tomlinson, 108).
Petrarch began a collection of his Italian poetry in 1342. In its final form it contained three hundred sixty-six compositions, principally sonnets, with other verse forms inter spread.
(Auslander, 295) Written in the tradition if chivalry, in which the lovers remain separated from his beloved, this body of love poetry has been a major influence ever since, particularly on the Elizabethan poets. (Auslander, 400) In Sonnet number three Petrarch speaks of the first time he laid eyes on the lady. He says: It was the morning of that blessed day then down three lines he describes that morning as being the day he fell captive to the lady: I fell a captive, Lady, to the sway. Petrarch is speaking of the day when he first met Laura, a woman that some critics say was Laura De Noves, while other critics say that Laura was just a figment of Petrarch s imagination. Petrarch describes how he wasn t able to get close to this lady. He says that: Of your swift eyes: that seemed no time to stay he s disappointed that the woman he loves was gone before he got to know her better.
Petrarch also writes as though love caught him like a predator would catch prey. He says that he stepped into the snare. It seems that he was unaware of what was about to happen to him as is the case when most of us fall in love.
