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Apr 21, 2021 · Petrarch penned Il Canzoniere, a sequence of 366 poems—the vast majority of which are sonnets—dedicated to his idealized love Laura de Noves. Petrarch’s vision appeared bold, new, and uncompromising, whereby he would declare in Sonnet 105 of Il Canzoniere : “Understand me who can, for I understand myself”—a full-throated affirmation ...
Apr 2, 2024 · His Canzoniere —a sequence of poems including 317 sonnets, addressed to his idealized beloved, Laura—established and perfected the Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet, which remains one of the two principal sonnet forms, as well as the one most widely used. The other major form is the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet.
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The Enduring Legacy of Petrarch's Poems about Laura. Petrarch's poems about Laura have had a lasting impact on both Italian and world literature. They established the Petrarchan sonnet as a popular form, influencing poets such as Shakespeare and Milton.
Laura de Noves (c. 1310–1348) was the wife of Count Hugues de Sade (ancestor of the Marquis de Sade). It has been speculated that she may be the Laura of Petrarch 's poetry, but this remains unproven.
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Petrarch’s Laura
At the center of the Canzoniere is the enigmatic figure of Laura, whose beauty, chastity, and unattainableness inspired most of Petrarch’s Italian poems. Several attempts have been made to identify a real-life “Laura”; at one point, she was believed to be Laura de Noves, an ancestress of the Marquis de Sade. But these attempts ultimately proved fruitless, leading some to speculate that Laura was wholly a creation of the imagination. Petrarch, however, assured at least one skeptical friend, Gi...
The courtly love tradition
The poems in the Canzoniere reflect the established mode of courtly love, which originated in France in the late eleventh century. As celebrated by the troubadours and poets from the Provençal region in southern France, I’amour courtois challenged and redefined Christian ideals of love, marriage, virtue, masculinity, and femininity. Powerful nobles, such as Eleanor of Aquitaineand Marie de Champagne, patronized these troubadours, with the result that the philosophy of courtly love soon spread...
The Avignon papacy
While most of the poems in the Canzoniereare romantic in nature, Petrarch also condemns—in a handful of sonnets—the religious politics of his time, especially those of the papal court in Avignon, the French city where Petrarch lived and worked for several years. Nor was he the only one of his contemporaries to do so. In 1309 the papacy moved from Rome—the longtime, official center of the pontiff—to Avignon. After asserting his supremacy to all Christian rulers in a papal bull (an official pro...
The contents
Petrarch’s Canzoniere consists of 366 lyric poems: 317 sonnets, 29 canzoni, 9 sestinas, 7 ballads, and 4 madrigals. At one point, a manuscript of the Canzoniere was divided in two parts, one, including 263 poems, headed “in vita di madonna Laura” (During the Life of Madonna Laura) and the other, including 103 poems, entitled “in morte di madonna Laura” (During the Death of Madonna Laura). Another critic divides the poems into three categories: poems about Laura, poems that attempt to reject h...
THE PETRARCHAN SONNET
Petrarch did not invent the sonnet (a 14-line lyric poem written in iambic pentameter, with an interlocking rhyme scheme). He, however, became inextricably associated with this type of poem to the point where the Italian form also became known as the Petrarchan sonnet. The Italian sonnet consists of an octave (eight lines), followed by a sestet (six lines). Usually there is a break between the two around the ninth line of the poem, sometimes known as the volra, or “turn”: the octave sets fort...
The spread of Petrarchism
After Petrarch’s death, the poems of his Canzonierecirculated in a variety of incarnations, not merely in their original manuscript form, but in neo-Latin and vernacular translations and musical adaptations. Petrarch had inadvertently established a tradition of love poetry that would be admired and imitated for several centuries. Appropriately known as Petrarchism, this tradition found adherents not only in Italy but in other European countries as well. The conventions of Petrarchan love poet...
Abrams, M. H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. Braden, Gordon. Petrarchan Love and the Continental Renaissance. New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1999. D’Amico, Jack, ed. Petrarch in England. Ravenna: Longo, 1979. Foscolo, Ugo. Essays on Petrarch. London: John Murray, 1823. Foster, Kenelm. Petrar...
Laura, a French woman beloved by Petrarch and celebrated in his poems, was in reality Laure de Noves who was later Madame de Sale. When Petrarch first beheld her on April 6, 1327, she was in the church of Avignon. By the time she died of the plague on April 6, 1348, she had given birth to 11 children.
Francesco Petrarch – Laura De Noves • Fell in love with a woman by the name of Laura De Noves. • Petrarch never actually spoke with Laura, even though he devoted over 365 sonnets to her. • Petrarch believed he would have time to inform her of his love once she grew older, but she died as a result of complications in childbirth.
