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Petrarch - Father Of The Renaissance - Creator Of The Sonnet - And The World\'s First Tourist!

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Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver.\\xa0 We\\u2019re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.

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I\\u2019m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.\\xa0 This week is our poetry supplement that we like to do between books.\\xa0 Next week we\\u2019re going to begin our discussion of Arthur Miller and his allegorical work \\u201cThe Crucible\\u201d, but before we leave the Renaissance, we felt we needed to take at least one week to discuss the man who is credited for starting the Renaissance= at least in part- the humanist part of it-- Francesco Petrarca or as we say in English Petrarch.\\xa0 Christy, this is one man that is so differently studied in the field of history versus your field or the study of literature- a testimony to his incredible influence, no doubt.

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So true, although everything intersects in the Renaissance- they were all renaissance men, of course!!\\xa0 But I neglected to point out and it was something worth mentioning that Machiavelli ends the prince quoting Petrarch\\u2019s famous poem, Canzone 128- a beautiful poem where Petrarch calls Italy to unity-

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The lines-\\xa0

\\xa0Virtue against furyShall take up arms; and the fight be short;\\xa0For ancient valourIs not dead in Italian hearts.

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\\xa0It\\u2019s somewhat strange concept in the 1300s \\u2013 which is when Petrarch lived two hundred years BEFORE Machiavelli- maybe even strange for the 1500s and Machiavelli\\u2019s day but a dream Machiavelli shared with Petrarch for their homeland- as they viewed it not just as Tuscany but as Italy.\\xa0

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There is so much strangeness involving with Francesco Petrarch, I really don\\u2019t know where to start.\\xa0 First of all 700 years is so long ago- for an American- we can\\u2019t even think of history being that old.\\xa0 On our land, the inhabitants were different than those of Europe.\\xa0 The world was so different.\\xa0 Our history locks up that far back because of lack of information really.\\xa0 \\xa0 My colleague and dear friend Bill Bivens who teaches AP European History talks of Petrarch and his important influence on humanistic thought- which as we remember from the intro to Machiavelli episode- is this idea that Italians were going to revive the works of the Greeks and Latins- and Petrarch did this.\\xa0 Petrarch firmly believed that believing in Jesus Christ was not at odds with ancient classical thought and through his work he sought to make this important connection between the two ways of looking at the world- a way that for many during the previous era seemed to be at odds or heretical.\\xa0 People thought that if you were a Christian you didn\\u2019t accept anything secular and the ideas of the ancient thinkers were invalid BECAUSE they were not Christian- even today for some- religion and secular thought are at odds but in his day that was a crazy proposition.\\xa0 In an European history class you will likely read\\xa0 of Petrarch\\u2019s ascent up Mt. Vintoux.\\xa0 You may even read his famous letter supposedly written to a priest he used to confess his sins to,\\xa0 documenting this climb up the mountain that he claimed he did just to see the view.\\xa0\\xa0

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Christy, explain why do you say supposedly-\\xa0

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Good question and one that looms over everything Petrarch- Petrarch addressed the letter to his confessor like it was a private meditation of sorts, but then he circulated it all over the place making it the very public piece of writing that we read to this day.\\xa0 So, there you go- the reason for that-id something I want to talk about.\\xa0 But as far as climbing Mt Vintoux goes,\\xa0 Petrarch\\u2019s climb up the mountain is extremely famous, Petrarch is even considered to be the informal patron saint of mountaineering.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

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I know it\\u2019s a tangent, but for those of us who have never been to Southern France, I think it\\u2019s worth mentioning that Mont Ventoux is a famous mountain in the South of France that we know better today because part of the Tour de France- the bike ride.\\xa0 Geographically it stands out kind of by itself, so you can see it from all around.\\xa0 It\\u2019s also unique because the peak covered in limestone making it look like it\\u2019s covered in snow all year, even though it\\u2019s not.\\xa0 It\\u2019s considered one of the most grueling parts of the race,\\xa0 Today of course, most people drive to the top.\\xa0 Regardless, Petrarch\\u2019s climb to the top, is the first of thousands of pilgrimages up this famous mountain with the purpose of going up there just to see the view.\\xa0\\xa0

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As he likely intended, I believe.\\xa0 Petrarch is considered to be the first tourist- not necessarily because he climbed Mt. Ventoux, but because he\\u2019s the first person to document traveling solely for pleasure- so there you go- that\\u2019s a even bigger trend that caught on,\\xa0 But of course, most of his time was spent doing a lot of scholarly work primarily in Latin much of which nobody but scholars ever reads anymore but his ideas have disseminated through a lot of writers who read him- for example, Machiavelli.\\xa0 A good example of this is the phrase- \\u201cThe Dark Ages\\u201d- he coined that phrase and people use it to this day to refer to the Middle Ages.

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It\\u2019s a terribly condescending term really, of course it doesn\\u2019t offend the people of the middle ages because they\\u2019re obviously dead- but Middle Age scholars will\\xa0 tell you it was definitely NOT a dark period at all.\\xa0 Lots of great things were done; great thinking, great art, etc.\\xa0 But Petrarch thought that because it was age right before his- the term itself is a great illustration of this idea I hammer down all the time and that is that we all must guard ourselves against the arrogance of the present \\u2013 it\\u2019s not just something we do only in the 21st century- everyone of every era always thinks their understanding or their view of the world is always the most enlightened, the most progressive and the final say on all things moral and scientific- we like to think of ourselves as superior to our immediate predecessors- and, we still use the technique of renaming things as a means to assert this kind of thinking.\\xa0 I call this the \\u201carrogance of the present\\u201d.\\xa0

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Well, Petrarch, if he saw himself as nothing else, he saw himself as enlightened and progressive- and really and truly- there is no doubt that he was. He absolutely has made a name for himself in the realm of history and philosophy and not to forget moutaineering- but for us English sorts- we view his most lasting legacy to be in the form of a tiny little literary convention we call the sonnet- which is a tad ironic- and something I\\u2019m not sure he would even like.\\xa0 He wrote this meandering epic poem called Africa in Latin and dedicated it to Robert of Naples.\\xa0 It seems to me he thought it was going to be a triumphal expression of a lasting legacy but it\\u2019s\\xa0 unreadable to almost everyone.\\xa0 Not so with the sonnet-which is so much simpler and accessible \\xa0 The word sonnet itself- is, in simple terms- is Italian for little song.\\xa0 It\\u2019s a small 14 line exercise really- a literary game- in some ways- if you want to look at it that way- where language meets math.\\xa0 Honestly, almost anyone that has been subjected to an English literature class was introduced to the sonnet- and lots of us had that teachers who made you write your own- and that can be really rough.\\xa0 Most students like reading them better than other things- if for nothing else but that they are short.\\xa0 They are way better received than the epic poems.\\xa0 Garry, do you remember reading sonnets in school?\\xa0 Did you by any chance write one?\\xa0 Perhaps to a true love.\\xa0\\xa0

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I\\u2019ll let you make up whatever you want here.

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The sonnet is a form of literary sodoku- if you ask me, although that\\u2019s not a scientific or scholarly description.\\xa0 Petrarch picked up the form from his home country in Tuscany, maybe even a guy from Arezzo named Friar Guittane \\u2013 although, in case you were wondering, a different man, a man from Sicily by the name of Giacomo Lentini gets credit for inventing the sonnet- anyway\\u2013 Petrarch made them famous by blasting out hundreds of them in praise of a woman named Laura- and that is what strikes me as strange about him. \\xa0 No one knows anything about Paura, we aren\\u2019t even entirely sure she ever existed.

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So you\\u2019re saying the object of his love in hundreds of poems \\u2013 the muse that gave birth to the poetic form of expressing true love for the last 700 years was potentially made up.\\xa0\\xa0

That\\u2019s whaty I\\u2019m saying.\\xa0 It\\u2019s a mystery. \\xa0 He claimed he loved this mysterious woman named Laura until her death, but according to Petrarch, she never loved him back- it was the ultimate expression of an unrequited love of a lifetime.\\xa0 But I\\u2019ll be honest- the identity of Laura is just one of the many mysteries of this man who documented his own life 700 years ago better than I\\u2019m documenting the lives of my children in the age of cameras and cellphones.\\xa0 In fact, Earnest Wilkins in his book Life of Petrarch has gone so far to say that we \\u201cknow far more about his experiences in life than about the experiences of any human being who had lived before his time.\\u201d\\xa0 Except- although that\\u2019s true in the sense that he documented himself constantly- maybe we do or maybe we don\\u2019t really know him.\\xa0 For me. Petrarch\\u2019s story\\xa0 is worth revisiting in our modern world- not just because he\\u2019s had an important influence on modern thought in terms of humanistic thinking and all that- but there\\u2019s an even more relevant reason and very modern reason to give him some thought\\u2026let me take a small detour to tell you where I\\u2019m going with this-.In 2017, the College Board asked almost 500,000 high school juniors from American and international schools around the world to consider a quote from the book Empire of Illusions by Chris Hedges/. They had 40 mins to write an essay about it- one of three they had to write to get a semester of college credit on the AP exam.\\xa0 Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, a presbyterian minister, and extremely interesting lecturer- worth checking out on youtube, if you\\u2019re so inclined, but he makes this claim that students were asked to write about.\\xa0 He says this\\u2026

The most essential skill in political theater and a consumer culture is artifice. Political leaders, who use the tools of mass propaganda to create a sense of faux intimacy with citizens, no longer need to be competent, sincere, or honest. They need only to appear to have these qualities. Mostof all they need a story, a personal narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. Those who are best at deception succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of entertainment, who fail to create a narrative or do not have one fashioned for them by their handlers, are ignored. They become \\u201cunreal.\\u201d\\xa0

An image-based culture communicates through narratives, pictures, and pseudo-drama.\\xa0

Before Chris Hedges introduced that term to me, I had never in my life heard the word \\u2018artifice\\u2019- now I can\\u2019t help but see it everywhere- and if you read his book or listen to his lectures on youtube, you\\u2019ll walk away frightened as to many of the conclusions he draws from our modern use of artifice.\\xa0 Although I\\u2019m not sure Hedges would disagree with Petrarch\\u2019s use of it and I\\u2019m sure Machiavelli would TOTALLY agree with it. \\xa0 I bring\\xa0 up Hedges because Petrarch, from my vantage points is one of the first people to masterfully use artifice not only to become one of the most celebrated and influential men of his time- this guy was so celebrated he was asked to be the Poet Laureate of both France and Rome- and his artifice has carried him 700 years into history- into Gloria to use Machiavelli\\u2019s language.\\xa0 He crafted a narrative about his own life- that was NOT his life.\\xa0 It was based on his life, but he revised his letters so that our memory of him was a better version than the reality of him- he used an Instagram filter\\u2026before Instram.\\xa0 And just like 16 year old Charlie Demelio\\xa0 with her 100 million plus subscribers, he did it with no handlers, no corporate promoters or professional image makers-\\xa0\\xa0

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\\xa0Petrarch did it without Tiktok, though.

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\\xa0True, but it took him longer.\\xa0 He crafted his own personal narrative and revised it over\\xa0 and over again so his perfectly crafted life to survive for posterity- if you look into it you\\u2019ll see that much of what he said about himself lots of scholars will say is likely made up- or at least embellished- Petrarch when it comes to celebrity makes Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton look like amateur artifice makers. Honestly- will there be podcasts about them in 700 years?\\xa0 He had an extreme amount of ego and ambition and those two things drove him to craft a self-portrait for the ages that was exactly what he wanted it to be.\\xa0 But now 700 years later, we have to wonder, did he really control his narrative into posterity- is that possible- and if it is, why bother doing it?\\xa0 Is there something to be gained by giving his any attention in today\\u2019s world?\\xa0 These are the thoughts I\\u2019ve had this week as I\\u2019ve thought about what I wanted to say about this man who most of us know because of the mystifying woman he called Laaauuuura\\u2026.

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Oh yes- I think her name is definitely worth repeating many times \\u2013 Laauuurrraaaa\\u2026..

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\\xa0Garry, let\\u2019s go back and see where Lauuurraaaa came from- drop us into Petrarch\\u2019s 14th century world and let\\u2019s build our case that Petrarch is the original influencer!!

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Okay- well, it starts rather undramatically- and of course, from Florence.\\xa0 His father was a lawyer but was exiled- sound familiar- they moved to a town called Arezzo not too far down the road still in Tuscany- and as you like to recall- still in the wine country.

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I have to interject- Arezzo, the shoe brand, is one of my personal favorites.\\xa0\\xa0

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Of course, and not to take away from the Brazilian shoe company because nothing can detract from outstanding leather fashion, but I did want to say that Dante- the guy who wrote Dante\\u2019s Inferno also is one of those who can claim being exiled from Florence.\\xa0 Anyway, Francesco was born on July 20, 1304.\\xa0 His parents, not too long after moved to Avignon, France.\\xa0 Now, they didn\\u2019t just move to France for the wine and cheese- although that\\u2019s been a draw for millions since.\\xa0 But, there\\u2019s a specific reason people were moving to Avignon at this time.\\xa0 The Papal state had been exiled out of Rome, if you can believe it, and the Pope was taking residence and leading the church from Avignon.\\xa0 Petrarch\\u2019s father was a lawyer in need of work, so he headed there to try to get a job.\\xa0 Avignon at the time was really too small for the number of people that were trying to move there, so the family really lived in a place about 15 miles away called Carpentras- but in the general area. \\xa0 Now the reason we even bother with knowing all that is two-fold- first of all- it is in Avignon that Petrarch is going to fall in love with Laura- and it is with Laurrra that we will end our discussion today.\\xa0 But secondly, it\\u2019s here Petrarch found his first love- and one he would pursue well beyond Laura\\u2019s lifetime- his love of Latin. Petrarch wanted and would eventually spend his entire life devoted to studying, transcribing, hunting down manuscripts in Latin, thinking about and reviving interest in the classics that were written in Latin.\\xa0 He was especially enamoured with Virgil. \\xa0 Petrarch because his father insisted went to law school in the town of Montpellier which also is in Southern France but he didn\\u2019t stay there- not too long after that he transferred to a school in Bologna, which is in Italy\\u2026but he didn\\u2019t stay there either.\\xa0 In reality, Petrarch never stayed anywhere for too long.\\xa0 But in the cawe of law school, as soon as his father died in 1326, his career in law immediately went away.\\xa0 He famously said, and I quote, \\u201cI couldn\\u2019t face making a merchandise of my mind.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0

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Oh yes- and I have to take over from here because we have gotten to that sacred moment- the moment that has changed the lives of lovers for the last 700 years- the moment where life and art meet to immortalize the sonnet, to immortalitalize unrequited love- it\\u2019s the moment that will leave Olympic laurel leaves on the heads of students forevermore following in Petrarch\\u2019s footsteps\\u2026.drumrole the date that will live not in infamy- but in sacred nobility- the date- April 6, 1327- for it is on this date-\\xa0 that the flames of love are ignited, let me quote Petrarch here as he recalls this moment: \\u201cAs a young man I was afflicted by a single love that was both fiery and pure, it would have lasted longer had it not been extinguished when the flames had already begun to burn low, by a death that was bitter but a lesson to me.\\u201d

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So, let\\u2019s be clear, he\\u2019s claiming that he fell in love with a woman on April 6 1327 and stayed madly in love with her until she died.

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That is his claim.\\xa0 Let me further quote him, \\u201cLaura, so renowned for her own virtues and so much celebrated in my poetry, was first manifested to my eyes when I was a young man, in the church of Ste Claire in Avignon, at prime on 6 April 1327.\\xa0 In the same city, this world was deprived of her radiance at that same first hour, 6 April 1348. I happened at the time to be in Verona, unaware of my sorrowful fate.\\u201d\\xa0 So, here\\u2019s the deal- Petrarch is claiming to have been in love with this woman for 21 years.\\xa0 Laura is the inspiration for 366 love poems- 317 of them sonnets.\\xa0 These sonnets, as we are going to understand, will define love poetry, some would argue for almost 700 years.\\xa0 They discuss pure love, idealized love, unrequited love.\\xa0 Some would argue, and in fact, it\\u2019s almost uncontested that Petrarch\\u2019s lyric poetry codified the Italian language- and they are all centered around this woman- who is NOT the mother of his children (although he has some and we don\\u2019t know who their mother is)- but that aside.\\xa0 The beauty of the lyrics are almost unsurpassed- this also is almost uncontested.\\xa0 And I want to add- this is something English speakers really can\\u2019t weigh in on- because when you translate a lyric poem- we lose all the beauty of the language- obviously the rhymes are messed up, the euphony of the sounds isn\\u2019t the same- but here\\u2019s my point- there is absolutely no question that Petrarch wrote over 300 of Italy\\u2019s most beautiful poems to a woman named laura. But it\\u2019s strange. We don\\u2019t\\xa0 knows for sure if Laura is actually a human or if he just made her up- and either way- why do it?\\xa0\\xa0

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\\xa0It\\u2019s historically very ambiguous.\\xa0 In truth we basically only have Petrarch\\u2019s word for her.\\xa0 We don\\u2019t know her family name, although a French scholar in 1533 named Maurice Sceve made a very legitimate claim that Laura was from a little town called Vaucluse and even excavated\\xa0 remains from a grave that gives some credence to this possibility.\\xa0\\xa0

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Another theory is that she\\u2019s this woman named Laura de Noves\\xa0who was the wife of Count Hugues de Sade.\\xa0 Boccacio, the writer of the Decameron but a close friend of Petrarch, thought maybe Laura was an allegory of the crown of bay which is a symbol of triumph- think Olympics remember if you win you get to win a crown of leaves- well that\\u2019s called a laurel- - it\\u2019s interesting that one of his closest friends would see it that way.\\xa0 Petrarch had just won the laurel the year before.\\xa0\\xa0

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Well, it IS weird, there\\u2019s no denying the strangeness of having the most self-documenting men in Western history document everything except not that woman he\\u2019s in love with that no one can find who is not the mother of his children- and let me say- he was close to his\\xa0 children.\\xa0 His daughter Francesca and her husband were very important figures in his life.\\xa0 But I will say, by the 1440s, historically, people have just accepted that there was a woman named Laura- and we have just kind of gone with it from there.\\xa0 There were a couple of places that were identified as possible birth places and the myth has kind of taken a life of it\\u2019s own.\\xa0 By the 1600s people were saying that she was a virgin and there were people starting to make portraits of her..and the story has just gone on from there.\\xa0 In some sense, it really doesn\\u2019t matter now, if it ever did.\\xa0 If she existed, it was only as a muse.\\xa0 They never had a real relationship.\\xa0 If she didn\\u2019t, she was still an idea.\\xa0 And it\\u2019s the idea of the pains and torments that he\\u2019s expressed in the sonnets that has taken off.\\xa0\\xa0

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That\\u2019s certainly true, there was a guy name Thomas Wyatt, who lived in the 1500s.\\xa0 He, like Petrarch was well-traveled.\\xa0 He is credited for bringing sonnets from Italy to the UK.\\xa0 He not only translated many of Petrarch\\u2019s sonnets, but he wrote a lot of his own modeling his work after Petrarch- another fun fact about Wyatt is that he may have had his own Laauurraa .

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Exactly- If you\\u2019ve heard that name, you may recognize it from a movie or two about Henry\\xa0 VIII because Wyatt was rumored to have had romantic connections with Anne Bolyne and almost got himself killed over it, but that\\u2019s another mystery for another day.\\xa0\\xa0

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Anyway, the broader point is this- Petrach had an incredibly important impact on the way people began to think in terms of science, history and the way it merges with faith.\\xa0 He thought deeply about the world- he believed that God created man with a mind and it was not unscientific and un-honoring to God NOT to use it.\\xa0

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\\xa0He merged science and religion that changed so much about the world.\\xa0 His mind was logical; it was powerful; and he thought very very deeply and because of that He had a message to get out to the world-- And yet, in order to ensure that people heard him he found it important to create a narrative- to use artifice- to use Chris Hedges language- and the story of Petrarch and Laura, is a part of that effort.\\xa0 And the love narrative of Petrarch and Laura has taken on a life of its own.\\xa0 There have been hundreds of paintings of the untouchable Laura.\\xa0 Liszt, the composer composed beautiful music, google it, inspired by Petrarch\\u2019s poetry for Laura.\\xa0

Petrarch, the father of Humanism, the original tourist, the patron saint of mountaineering, the poet laurente of Rome- wrote an imaginary love story- took an old troubadour troupe stuffed it in 14 lines of rhyming iambic pentameter and it has propelled him and his ideas into a part of the the history of the world- almost every educated person on planet earth knows about this little diddly do\\u2026it sounds like I\\u2019m grandizing his legacy but really I\\u2019m truly amazed by it- so here\\u2019s the first Petrarchean sonnet I ever read- after that we\\u2019ll read a second one- the first one is about Petrarch loving Laura and the pain of knowing he can never have her.\\xa0 In the second one, Laura\\u2019s dead.\\xa0 Garry, will you read it for us, after you read it, I\\u2019ll explain a little bit about the math behind the words- I won\\u2019t get too much into the theme because we just don\\u2019t have time for everything and for once the technique is more interesting to me than the ideas.\\xa0\\xa0

Sure- this is sonnet 104\\xa0

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I find no peace and bear no arms for war,

\\xa0\\xa0I fear, I hope; I burn yet shake with chill;

\\xa0\\xa0I fly the Heavens, huddle to earth\\u2019s floor,

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Embrace the world, yet all I grasp is nil.

\\xa0\\xa0Love opens not nor shuts my prison\\u2019s door

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Nor claims me his nor leaves me to my will;

\\xa0\\xa0He slays me not yet holds me evermore,

\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0Would have me lifeless yet bound to my ill. (END OF OCTAVE)

\\xa0\\xa0Eyeless I see and tongueless I protest.

\\xa0\\xa0And long to perish while I succor seek;

Myself I hate and would another woo.

\\xa0\\xa0I feed on grief, I laugh with sob-racked breast

\\xa0And death and life alike to me are bleak:

\\xa0\\xa0My lady, thus I am because of you.

(END OF SESTET)

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So, this is the way Petrarchean sonnets work: like all sonnets \\u2013 well I say all sonnets- but that\\u2019s so not true- I should say- like most sonnets- it has 14 lines. The lines are divided into two parts- the first part is called the octave and the second part is called the sestet- 8 and 6- and yes- I have to use my fingers to do the math.\\xa0\\xa0

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But then you get into the rhmning part- each line ends with a rhyme- and this is where English and Italian part ways.\\xa0 English isn\\u2019t a very good language for rhyming- Italian words rhyme better-\\xa0 But for this one we have line one which ends with war- so we\\u2019ll call that rhyme a- the second line doesn\\u2019t rhyme with war- so we\\u2019ll call it rhyme b- but then the third line rhymes with the first line and we have what we call a rhyme scheme.\\xa0 So the rhyme scheme for the English translation of this poem is ababababcdecde.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

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There are a couple of variations- sometimes the rhyme sequence is abba abba \\u2013 sometimes it ends with cdc cdc.\\xa0 The second one we\\u2019re reading does the rhymes that way- so you can see the difference- or at least hear the difference.\\xa0 Of course, even though the rules are kind of strict- you can always break any rule you want.\\xa0 The main thing to look for is the shifte between the first 8 lines and the second six- this shift is called the volta- which means the turn in Italian.

It\\u2019s A turn of thought or argument, a rhetorical shift if you look at the poem as making a position- which id does. It\\u2019s a dramatic change in emotions or thoughts that the poet is expressing in the\\xa0poem.\\xa0The first part asks a question; the second part gives the answer.\\xa0\\xa0

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Let\\u2019s read this second one.\\xa0\\xa0

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O lovely little bird, I watch you fly, \\xa0 \\xa0 A

\\xa0And grieving for the past I hear you sing. B

\\xa0I see the night and winter hastening,\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 B

\\xa0I see the day and happy summer die.\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 A

If you could hear my heart in answer cry. A

\\xa0Its pain to your sad tune, you\\u2019d swiftly wing. B

\\xa0Into my bosom, comfort you would bring \\xa0 B

And we would weep together, you and I.\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 A

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\\u2018Tis no equality of woe I fear; \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 C

Perhaps she lives whom you bewail; from me.\\xa0 D

\\xa0Have greedy death and heaven snatched my dear, \\xa0 C

But the dark autumn evening hour sets free \\xa0 \\xa0 D

The memory of many a banished year.\\xa0 \\xa0 C

\\xa0So that let us talk of the past then, tenderly.\\xa0 D

You see- this second one divides up the poem differently.\\xa0 It has the ABBA, ABBA, CDCDCD thing going on.\\xa0 But in both cases, and this is what makes the Petrachean sonnets different from the Shakespearean ones- you\\u2019ll see the clear break between the first 8 and the last six where you create tension in the first half and you relieve it in the second half.\\xa0\\xa0

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I know I\\u2019m focusing on form way more than what he meant by the poems.\\xa0 But sonnets are interesting because of their form.\\xa0 The other thing I want to point out, and this is what makes them harder for us to write in English, although I will say, rhyming is quite a quick. But the beat of the words.\\xa0 They are all in what we call iambic pentameter- and as we\\u2019ve talked about with Ozymndias and other poems and even with Romeo and Juliet- it\\u2019s the beat of the language that really stands out.\\xa0 And it\\u2019s something we don\\u2019t hear often in our own language, we don\\u2019t notice it- but if we change languages we do.\\xa0 Now, I don\\u2019t speak Italian, I\\u2019d love to, but I do speak Portuguese which is also a romance language, and I think the beats are much more evident in Romance languages- we\\u2019re at least more aware of them to point that in Portuguese we physically put accent marks on accented words.\\xa0 Let me illustrate- Quando eu Ensino essa ideia na minha sala de aula eu sempre falo em portugues porque os alunos nunca entendem o que estou falando e quando nao entendem da para ourvir com mais clareza os acentos das palavras.\\xa0 Could you hear that?\\xa0 Garry, what did that sound like to you.

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Whatever you want to say here.

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Yes-\\xa0 It\\u2019s the sound of the words- the beat, the rhythm the way the words sound together- it\\u2019s what makes it pretty. And really, that\\u2019s what Petrarch is really known for in Italian- he makes the sound of the words pretty.\\xa0 It has to do with the beat of the words.\\xa0 Now back to Iambic pentameter- I want to go back to the first sonnet because just because it\\u2019s famous and we haven\\u2019t talked about it.\\xa0\\xa0

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I find no peace and bear no arms for war,

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Listen to the beat- every other word is accented- listen again to this one

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\\xa0\\xa0I fear, I hope; I burn yet shake with chill;\\xa0 (sound this out)

This is why I say sonnets are where English becomes a math game- kind of like scrabble is a math game but deceptively with words.\\xa0 Sonnets are strictly constructed to confirm to specific rules, and it\\u2019s the confinement of the form that makes them fun to write.\\xa0 Try to make something meaningful- and make it rhyme just like that and make it have that same beat.\\xa0 It\\u2019s definitely not impossible, almost anyone can do it.\\xa0 In fact, I would say every English speaker can do it. Today there\\u2019s even an app for that- but that is cheating.\\xa0 The fun is in the mental gymnatistics and when you finish you come out with something beautiful.\\xa0 Years that I teach poetry, which is not every year, but when I do, I make my students write sonnets.\\xa0 One year, my kids just grumbled and grumbled more than usual- and said I was aksing them to do something I was incapable of doing- so I sat down and wrote one for them.\\xa0 I found it the other day- if you wan\\u2019t I\\u2019ll share my Petrarchean sonnet on the web page.\\xa0 I wrote it about my lost love for the stork.\\xa0 If you\\u2019re interested.

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Well, of course I\\u2019m interested, how could I, as your husband not be interested in any love of yours- and I\\u2019m sorry to say, I did\\u2019t know you had feelings for the stork.

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Oh yes- it\\u2019s a thing that really happened.\\xa0\\xa0

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Ha- well, before we get to that fine ending.\\xa0 We do need to circle back to Petrarch- and I want to kind of go back to our discussion about Mt. Vintoux- because like you were saying about the sonnet, Petrarch\\u2019s influence on the way we think is so embedded into our culture that we don\\u2019t often see it.\\xa0 By linking pagan learning in the classics to Christianity he links the issue of the relationship to that of the importance of the intellect with the will of knowing compared to loving.\\xa0 This has played out in so many in our Western ways of thinking- he discusses issues of morality with issues of pursing truth, wisdom and love.\\xa0 His genius really left him isolated in many ways in fact he advocated for a scholar to live in solitude.\\xa0 And yet, I can tell, it really disturbs you that so much of what he said about himself wasn\\u2019t really technically true.\\xa0\\xa0

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It kind of does disturb me.\\xa0 Why rewrite your life in your letters?\\xa0 Why create a romantic fantasy for a woman that may or may not have existed but either way you certainly didn\\u2019t know her?\\xa0 Why climb a mountain and write about it in a way that is likely to challenge your credibility as to whether you even did the thing you say you did?

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Yes- and I think the term you used was artifice. He created a narrative.\\xa0 But here is where I say, it\\u2019s possible to look at Petrarch differently than we look at modern day influencers like Jake Paul or any number of the youtubers that are influencers for fame\\u2019s sake.\\xa0 First of all, the idea of making metaphors out of life experiences is something artists do this all the time- and both in the case of Mt Vintoux as well as in the case of Laura that\\u2019s what he\\u2019s done.\\xa0 He\\u2019s made the real things symbols of very deep ideas that were swimming in his head.\\xa0 Here\\u2019s a simple but modern example from our very own hills of Tennessee.\\xa0 Think about Dolly Parton- the songs that she writes are about her life- in part- but not all- take the song, \\u201cI will Always Love You\\u201d- she wrote it about a platonic relationship with her business partner, but Whitney\\xa0 sang it about a romantic partner- words are crafted by the artist- but a smart artist knows they words become someone else\\u2019s story immediately when they read it.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

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However, that doesn\\u2019t answer the question as to why he rewrote the accounts of his life, his letters, even the ascent to Mt Ventoux- there\\u2019s obviously only a part of it.\\xa0

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\\xa0\\xa0Let\\u2019s look at the sonnet he wrote about Laura- the first one we read was about the torture of feeling a love that you don\\u2019t want to feel and know you can\\u2019t have- there is pain in that.\\xa0 Most of us on planet earth have felt that.\\xa0 The Laura metaphor whether she lived or didn\\u2019t- speaks for us all and he wanted to speak for us all.\\xa0 The second sonnet is about the loss of death- does the same thing.\\xa0 But let\\u2019s look at what he\\u2019s done by climbing Mt Vintoux.\\xa0 The metaphor is the mountain- what is that about- his determination to climb the mountain is an expression of humanism- the movement he\\u2019s credited for starting.\\xa0 He climbed it for the sake of knowing- how nice- and what a nice thing to aspire to in life- for all of us.\\xa0 We can climb for the sake of knowing- he found happiness there- it\\u2019s a physical and a spiritual and an intellectual experience.\\xa0 Petrarch wanted to not just be the man who knows- but the happy man who is skilled enough and daring enough to live purposefully, understanding the pains and joys of life but finding enough beauty to sustain these hits.

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And it is the art of artifice- crafting thee narrative that gave longevity and emotion to the ideas he had inside- a truly complicated man.\\xa0 Well, before we end- there is one final mystery we should bring.\\xa0 In 1981, a professor by the name of Professor Terribile Wiel Marin in honor of Petrarch\\u2019s 700th bday opened Petrarch\\u2019s tomb.\\xa0 The idea was to excavate his body so they could through modern technology recreate what he actually looked like.\\xa0 Now here\\u2019s the crazy part, when they dug up the body what they found was that the body was definitely his, but his head had been decapitated and a head from a different body was in the grave.\\xa0 The head from the grave- even more strangely, is the head of a woman.\\xa0 Any thoughts on that?\\xa0 I KNOW Petrarch couldn\\u2019t possibly couldn\\u2019t have created that!!!

Ha!- well, maybe he didn\\u2019t or maybe he did\\u2026..how could we ever know!!!!\\xa0 Maybe it\\u2019s LAAAUUURRAA.\\xa0\\xa0

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