Petrarch, << PEE trahrk >> (1304-1374), was a great Italian lyric poet and scholar. His love poetry has had an unparalleled influence on world literature. He was also such a respected scholar that rulers and popes sought his services. Petrarch led in discovering the greatness of classical writers and helped start the movement later called humanism. Such Latin writers as Cicero and Livy might be almost unknown today if Petrarch had not found their lost works buried in monastery libraries.
In his own day, Petrarch’s Latin writings were considered revivals of the Greek and Roman style of literature. His intimate knowledge of the classics led to his conviction that there is no essential conflict between classical and Christian thought. This conviction anticipated the spirit of the Renaissance.
Throughout his life, Petrarch composed poems of varying length in Italian to praise a beloved woman called Laura. Scholars are not certain that Laura really lived. At first, Petrarch saw in Laura a fleeting image of beauty which he never tired of describing. Eventually he added Christian dimensions to this image of beauty, reflecting implications of human hopes, aspirations, and duties.
Petrarch wrote more than 400 poems in Italian. Of these, 366 form his Canzoniere (Book of Songs), on which his reputation rests. Petrarch divided the collection into two parts. The first part, called In vita (During the Life), contains poems presumably written during Laura’s lifetime. The second part, In morte di Madonna Laura (After the Death of My Lady Laura), was written after her death. In the second part, Laura assumes the role of a guide, leading her lover toward God and toward ultimate salvation.
The Canzoniere includes a roughly chronological history of the poet’s overwhelming passion for Laura and ends with a hymn to the Virgin Mary. The work expresses a haunting sense of the passage of time and of the vanity of earthly endeavors. It also shows an intense awareness of the conflict between spiritual and earthly values. The tone of the collection alternates bodily pleasure with spiritual love and religious feeling. The poems thus mirror an individual’s uneasy condition as being capable of both the lowest depths and the greatest heights. Technically, Petrarch achieved new perfection in writing the sonnet and the ode, the chief literary forms in the Canzoniere. The work influenced such lyric poets as Pierre de Ronsard, Sir Philip Sidney, Luis de Gongora, John Donne, and William Shakespeare.
Petrarch was born Francesco Petracco on July 20, 1304, in Arezzo, Italy. He spent most of his productive years in France where his father was in political exile. Petrarch died July 18 or 19, 1374.
