Download The Annunciation and Two Saints

Petrarch and the Petrarchan Tradition in
Renaissance Literature and Thought
Francesco Petrarca, ca.1450
by Andrea di Bartolo di Bargilla
Petrarch and Laura, 1842
by Nicaise de Keyser (Flemish)
Statue (19th century) of Petrarch,
outside Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Humanist Thought in the Early Renaissance
A Context for Petrarch: Norton C, 2465-72

What are some of the important features of the Renaissance?

What broad changes in religion did the Renaissance witness?

What are some important inventions of the Renaissance?

What are some features that characterize the individual in
Renaissance thought?

What is “humanism”?

What is “Renaissance melancholy”?
What “is” the Renaissance?

“Renaissance” is French for re-birth

The “Renaissance” a term typically used to refer to a period in Early
Modern Europe spanning approximately 1350 to 1650

Different countries experienced their Renaissance at different times.
Generally, the trend was northward. Italy’s Renaissance (14th century)
occurred well before England’s Renaissance (16th century).
What are some important features of the
Renaissance?

The Renaissance is conventionally understood as a flowering of the
arts emerging from “the questing, self-conscious individual”
(Damrosch 149) actively exploring—and thus creating—the self
and the world in which the self exists (Pasinetti and James 2468).

Pasinetti and James describe literature of the Renaissance as
characterized by a “shift toward internal, mental, and
psychological portraiture” (2465).

Much of that art was drawn from an idea of the ancient world;
hence, the Renaissance is a rebirth of classical antiquity in a
modern age.

It is both a backward-looking movement (classical antiquity) and a
forward-looking movement (translating the past for a new, modern
world).
What are some important features of the
Renaissance?
“Renaissance authors, like the characters they invent, inhabited a
world of such widespread revolutionary change that they could not
passively receive the traditional wisdom of previous ages” (Pasinetti
and James 2465).
In
addition to—and influencing the nature of—the flowering of the
arts, great changes were occurring during the Renaissance in the areas of:

Religion

Technology and Science

World Exploration and Discovery

Bureaucratic and Institutional Power

Economic and Social Power
These
changes were highly interrelated.
Religious Changes






This is a period of religious divisiveness.
By Galileo’s recantation of his claims about the heliocentric nature
of the universe in 1632, “there were over twenty-five versions of
Christianity” (Damrosch 151).
“For Renaissance intellectuals and for the literary characters they
created, there was almost literally no firm ground to stand on as they
moved through life in an increasingly complex and uncertain world”
(Pasinetti and James 2466).
Violent protests about religion occurred, sparking Martin Luther’s
Reformation (of the Catholic Church and its means of maintaining
absolute power over the people).
In the wake of religious divisiveness, many religious sects left to find
colonies and schools in other parts of the world (Puritans left
England for Plymouth Rock during the time of the Reformation, for
example).
Such divisiveness was a part of the age's “preoccupation with this
life rather than with the life beyond” (Pasinetti and James 2468).
Religious Changes






Such “preoccupation with this life rather than with the life beyond”
(Pasinetti and James 2468) meant that in general, “the presence of
God...is conspicuously less dominating” (2469) in the literature of
the period.
See: “the dignity of man” and humanity's “privileged position in
creation” (2471)
More accurately, artists and intellectuals were struggling with “the
conflict between the values of worldly goods and...the religious
conviction in the transitory nature of earthly possessions” (2469).
Religious debates proliferated (2470): “Given the political force of
the Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformation, it is no wonder
that the Renaissance often appears to be more preoccupied with
earthly...empires than with the heavenly king” (2470).
The “religious temper of the age is expressed in its art,” where the
earthly and the spiritual are often intermixed (2470).
Petrarch's poems, for instance, reflects a complex treatment of
earthly and spiritual desire.
Changes in Technology & Science






The map of the world was being redrawn; by 1632, explorers had traveled to the
western coast of South America
The world’s “center” was no longer a function of religious power and primacy, but
subordinated to “mathematical precision” (Damrosch 151).
New inventions—like Galileo’s telescope, Gutenberg’s printing press, and
important means of navigation—made the “previously unthinkable” eminently
possible.
Galileo's friend Campanella “optimistically asserted that the three great inventions
of his day—the compass, the printing press, and the gun—were 'signs of the union
of the entire world'” (Pasinetti and James 2465).
The quadrant enabled ships to travel from Europe to India and the New World
(Damrosch 157). But gunpowder was also a new technology frequently put to use
in less unifying ways (Damrosch 156).
Influx of ancient knowledge from the Middle East reinvigorated engineering,
architecture, science, and so on. Many of the greatest buildings in Europe were
erected during this period, often to celebrate earthly powers and “the dignity of
man.”
The Printing Press






The printing press was “an instrument for intellectual deliberation and the
dissemination of ideas” (Pasinetti and James 2466).
It “transformed the reading habits of Europeans and enabled them not only to
publish but to own materials once restricted to clerics and the wealthy”
(Damrosch 157).
Spurring the Reformation and much cultural and religious divisiveness, the
printing press also allowed people to participate in a “republic of letters”
(Pasinetti and James 2467).
The printing press was a major player in the Reformation, for it allowed
biblical texts to be translated into vernaculars, read, and even studied by
common people. Which not everyone wanted...!
In fact, the invention of the printing press facilitated the religious divisiveness
of the Early Modern period.
With the expanded availability of the press came education and increasing
levels of literacy. Men and women could publish their works, something
unthinkable before the advent of print. For many more people, writing became
“simply one aspect of…daily activities” (Damrosch 159).
The Renaissance Individual






The Renaissance is conventionally understood as a flowering of the arts
emerging from “the questing, self-conscious individual” (Damrosch 149)
actively exploring—and thus creating—the self and the world in which the self
exists (Pasinetti and James 2468).
Pasinetti and James describe literature of the Renaissance as characterized by
a “shift toward internal, mental, and psychological portraiture” (2465).
The Renaissance individual characterized by “a singularly high capacity for
feeling the delight of earthly achievement” (2471), and literature of the period
delves in to the sensuous pleasures—and the questions—of individual, earthly
experience.
This is in contrast with the ideal individual of the Medieval period who sees
life on earth as mere preparation for the eternal life after death (2468)
Attention to the here-and-now reflected in the “Renaissance code of behavior”
(2468)
Balance of power began to move towards the cities: urbanization, commerce,
conversation and exchange of ideas
Humanism






“Renaissance” literally means “rebirth”—the “revival and imitation of
antiquity” (2467). From this literal sense, the term connotes “a general
notion of artistic creativity, of extraordinary zest for life and knowledge,
of sensory delight in opulence and magnificence, of spectacular individual
achievement” (2466).
“The Renaissance assumption is that there are things highly worth doing,
within a strictly temporal pattern [namely, the proper exercise of political
power, the act of scientific discovery, the creation of works of art]. By
doing them, humanity proves its privileged position in creation...”
(Pasinetti and James 2471).
The phrase “the dignity of man” refers to “this positive, strongly affirmed
awareness of the intellectual and physical 'virtues' of the human being,
and of the individual's place in creation” (2471).
Specifically, spectacular individual human achievement, most frequently
visible in human productions—the arts and sciences
“The people who, starting at about the middle of the fourteenth century,
gave new impulse to this emulation of the classics are often referred to as
humanists.”
“The word...is related to what we call the humanities, and the humanities
at that time [referred to the study of] Latin and Greek” texts (2467).
Renaissance Melancholy





“The Renaissance coincided with, and perhaps to some extent occasioned,
a loss of firm belief in the final unity and the final intelligibility of the
universe” (2471)
With the profound belief in the capacity and ability of the individual, and
the delight in earthly accomplishment, there comes the question of “its
ultimate worth” (Pasinetti and James 2471)
If the here-and-now is held up as the proper province of human study and
action, then how do we judge the value and purpose of “all this activity”?
“Once the notion of this grand unity of design has lost its authority,
certainty about the final value of human actions is no longer to be found.
For some minds...the sense of void becomes so strong as to
paralyze...aspiration to power, thirst for knowledge, or delight in beauty”-this paradox results in an attitude often referred to as “Renaissance
melancholy” (2471)
Also results in a “modern sense of alienation” (2476), as experienced by
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (Petrach)
1304-1374





Contemporary of Dante and Boccacio (late Medieval period)
But considered the first modern poet and the “Father of
Humanism”
Most famous for his lyric poetry in the vernacular (Italian, rather
than Latin, important because more people could read and
understand—not just the educated, scholastic elite)
Set the standard for Renaissance lyric poetry, which is primarily
characterized by a desire to interrogate and understand the self,
the human—this same desire also visible in his letters and essays
“Petrarch bequeathed to later humanists the hope that scholarpoets might one day be recognized as shaping forces of the
nation-state” (Pasinetti and James 2476).
“The Ascent of Mount Ventoux”
Genre: slightly fictionalized letter







What, most broadly, happens in this letter? What story does it tell?
A motif is a repeated image that seems to have an important resonance in the
text. What important motifs can you find in this letter?
Why do you think Petrarch take the winding path?
Petrarch calls this choice a “mistake” (2481) that he made “three times.” In
what ways might the choice not be a mistake, but a good thing?
What important features of Renaissance thought are evident in this letter?
Keeping those important features of Renaissance thought in mind, return to
the motifs you discovered. What might these motifs be metaphors for?
Why do you think the letter is a good genre or form for this writing? You might
start by considering what a letter is.
Skill at fashioning verse, working ingeniously within strict metrical and formal confines,
highly valued; much like the confines of the mortal world. The formal poet asks, how high
can I soar within these bounds? How
Petrarch—father of humanism, also key figure in early modern lyric poetry for his
perfection of the sonnet form
In Il Canzoniere or Rime Sparse, Petrarch wrote about his struggle to define and
understand himself—often caught between earthly and spiritual goods. Laura, his
beloved—whom he saw in church one day!--is an embodiment of the tensions his poems
explore.
Many forms of sonnets, but two you'll be familiar with are Petrarchan and
Shakespearean.
In general, a sonnet is a dialectical construct that allows the poet to engage two usually
contrasting ideas, states, emotions, images, and so on. These two facets are juxtaposed
against one another in distinct portions of the sonnet's form. Sometimes they are
resolved in the last couplet—or show consequences (common in Shakespearean
sonnets)--but often the sonnets simply reveal important existing tensions.
Form clearly mirrors and enables, as well as binds and structures, the content.
A sonnet is 14 lines of metrical poetry, divided into two sections by the two differing
rhyme groups, the octet (stable, in the Italian/Petrarchan sonnet—always a b b a / a b b
a) and the sestet (varies).
Often, the way two things rhyme indicates the nature of their relationship. In accordance
with the principle (which supposedly applies to all rhymed poetry but often doesn't), a
change from one rhyme group to another signifies a change in subject matter. This
change occurs at the beginning of L9 in the Italian/Petrarchan sonnet.
Change is called the volta, or "turn"; the turn is an essential element of the sonnet form,
perhaps the essential element. It is at the volta that the second idea is introduced.
Sometimes poets will delay or alter the volta for specific effect.
The English/Shakespearean sonnet is more flexible, consisting of four alternately rhymed
quartets and a rhyming couplet, though similar relationships between rhyme group and
thought exist:
abab
cdcd
efef
gg
adapted from Miller, Nelson. “Basic sonnet forms.” Sonnet Central. 17 June 2007. 26
June 2007. <http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm>.
Petrarch (Italian, 13041347)
Canzoniere I
Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse il suono
di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core
in sul mio primo giovenile errore
quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono,
del vario stile in ch'io piango et ragiono
fra le vane speranze e 'l van dolore,
ove sia chi per prova intenda amore,
spero trovar pietà, nonché perdono.
Ma ben veggio or sí come al popol tutto
favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente
di me mesdesmo meco mi vergogno;
et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto,
e 'l pentersi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente
che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno.
Petrarch, Rime I. Read in Italian by Moro Silo.
1
5
9
12
Francis Petrarch, Canzionere 1
O you who hear within these scattered verses
the sound of sighs with which I fed my heart
in my first errant youthful days when I
in part was not the man I am today;
for all the ways in which I weep and speak
between vain hopes, between vain suffering,
in anyone who knows love through its trials,
in them, may I find pity and forgiveness.
But now I see how I’ve become the talk
so long a time of people all around
(it often makes me feel so full of shame),
and from my vanities there comes shame’s fruit,
and my repentance, and the clear awareness
that worldly joy is just a fleeting dream.
(published 1470)
Petrarch (Italian, 13041347)
Canzoniere III
Era il giorno ch'al sol si scoloraro
per la pietà del suo factore i rai,
quando i' fui preso, et non me ne
guardai,
ché i be' vostr'occhi, donna, mi legaro.
Tempo non mi parea da far riparo
contra colpi d'Amor: però m'andai
secur, senza sospetto; onde i miei guai
nel commune dolor s'incominciaro.
Trovommi Amor del tutto disarmato
et aperta la via per gli occhi al core,
che di lagrime son fatti uscio et varco:
però al mio parer non li fu honore
ferir me de saetta in quello stato,
a voi armata non mostrar pur l'arco.
Read in Italian by Moro Silo.
Bernini, Apollo and Daphne,
1624.
Also described in Ovid's
Metamorphoses, the story of
Apollo and Daphne is one of love,
poetry, pursuit, transformation.
Apollo, the god of poetry,
medicine, light, and archery was
struck in malice by an arrow from
Cupid; he falls in love—his first
love—with Daphne, a nymph
whose name means “laurel.”
Apollo longs for her, but she flees.
As the youth gains on her, she
pleads to the gods to change her
form, which has brought the
danger of rape upon her (her
words, not mine!). The gods hear
her, and she is transformed into a
laurel tree. Apollo adopts the
laurel tree as his sign, and the
wreath of laurel is given to
eminent poets—like Petrarch.
Petrarch, Rime 78
Simone Martini (fl. 1315-1344)
The Annunciation and Two Saints
(detail, “Mary”) 1333
Tempera on wood
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
While Martini's portrait of Laura has
been lost, the painter's stylistic
signature is consistent. This image of
the Virgin Mary suggests how Martini
might have painted the Laura of
Petrarch's rimes.
Petrarch, Rime 78
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
Pymalion and Galatea, c. 1890
Oil on Canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art
In Rime 78, Petrarch invokes the
classical image of Pygmalion from Ovid's
Metamorphoses: “Pygmalion, how glad
you should be of your statue” (9). The
poetic speaker goes on to clarify why
Pygmalion should be “glad” of his
creation, arguing that the mythological
artist “received a thousand times” the
embraces and other human interaction
that the speaker “yearn[s] to have just
once!” (10).
Who was Pygmalion, and what can we
learn about the poet's treatment of Laura
from the classical allusion?
Francis Petrarch, Canzionere 189
My ship laden with forgetfulness passes through a harsh sea, at midnight, in
winter, between Scylla and Charybdis, and at the tiller sits my lord, rather my
enemy;
each oar is manned by a ready, cruel thought that seems to scorn the tempest
and the end; a wet, changeless wind of sighs, hopes and desires breaks the sail;
a rain of weeping, a mist of disdain wet and loosen the already weary ropes,
made of error twisted up with ignorance.
My two usual sweet stars are hidden; dead among the waves are reason and
skill; so that I begin to despair of the port.
(published 1470, trans. by Robert Durling, Norton Anthology of World
Literature C)
Petrarch, Rime 78
Simone Martini (fl. 1315-1344)
The Annunciation and Two Saints
(detail, “Mary”) 1333
Tempera on wood
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
While Martini's portrait of Laura has
been lost, the painter's stylistic
signature is consistent. This image of
the Virgin Mary suggests how Martini
might have painted the Laura of
Petrarch's rimes.
Petrarch, Rime 78
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
Pymalion and Galatea, c. 1890
Oil on Canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art
In Rime 78, Petrarch invokes the
classical image of Pygmalion from Ovid's
Metamorphoses: “Pygmalion, how glad
you should be of your statue” (9). The
poetic speaker goes on to clarify why
Pygmalion should be “glad” of his
creation, arguing that the mythological
artist “received a thousand times” the
embraces and other human interaction
that the speaker “yearn[s] to have just
once!” (10).
Who was Pygmalion, and what can we
learn about the poet's treatment of Laura
from the classical allusion?