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Petrarch Today

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An American poet, R. M. Engelhardt once observed: “The sonnet, a lyrical poem, the beauty and magic... convey with our hearts the truth of the universe in a single moment briefly.”

On April 6th, 1327, Italian Humanist poet Francesco Petrarch met 'Laura' and dedicated 365 sonnets to her. The sonnet, though invented by 13th century Italian poet Giacomo da Lentini, Petrarch has been credited as the earliest sonneteer who perfected the sonnet structure and invented the Petrarchan sonnet. Why is this important? The sonnet form of poetry has been popularly used since the 13th Century to express love and passion. The nature of the love expressed could range from religious devotion to a momentary crush developed at the sight of a beautiful woman. In a conservative society that prevailed prior to and post the Renaissance, penning down sonnets about love was always in vogue. But the development of the sonnet through the ages as an expression of love is crucial as it serves as a parallel to comprehend the changing attitude of society towards women as well as the conception of love.

Petrarch' sonnets dealt with unrequited love and was addressed to a cold distant beautiful lover. As the sonnet form was adopted in England and modified by Shakespeare, it began to inculcate an idea of equality- the beloved was not a cold, distant goddess like lady, but an equal, a participant in the poet's life. More interestingly, Shakespeare penned sonnets that addressed both a man and a woman. While it would be far fetched and definitely erroneous to assume Shakespeare to be homosexual, keeping in mind that the nature of the sonnets addressed to his male friend was advisory, Shakespeare's sonnets to “The Dark Woman” reflects the growing acceptance of society to beauty as an aspect beyond complexion and physical attributes and love as beyond unrequited and painful love.

The decline of the sonnet during the Restoration occurred with the rakishness of the aristocrats, the view of marriage and the open secret of extra marital relationships. The Romantics did not take much liking to a form that was just 14 lines in iambic pentameter and a definite rhyme scheme and the Anglo American New Critics could not understand the sincerity of love if it must be constrained thus.

But the Petrarchan grandeur, the depiction of love is not completely absent in art today. Era il giorno ch'al sol si scoloraro that translates to “It was the day the sun's rays had turned pale” is not unlike the nature of Bollywood songs whose lines can also connect to the concept of love in Sir Philip Sidney's sonnet sequence “Astrophel and Stella.” The 'tuhi mera din, tuhi mera rath' et al is quite in line with the essence of sonnets. These perceptions have faced the wrath of rationalists and consequently branded as ‘cheesy’, but serious aficionados of love and literature will know what this concept entails. The kinship of mortality is often presumed to be that kinship that the most divergent of humans share, but the ability to love, see love as bigger than mortal existence is what infuses life into living. Petrarch believed that “True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving.”  Dumbeldore might’ve put it most simply, but simplicity, when bestowed with a connotation that has the scope for greatness, requires grandeur to bring forth its vitality. Sonnets did this, as much as it tamed the expression of love with its structure.

How can an argument and its resolution be best expressed in just 14 iambic pentametric lines with a definite rhyme scheme, is not a task for an average mortal. It takes the most industrious, intelligent and talented of people to achieve this and when love is expressed after much industry and sincerity, can the love be far from grand?

Funnily enough, it brings into mind Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” protagonist-Elizabeth Bennet’s declaration that such a task could starve off a half baked infatuation. Good enough: the sonnet can serve as a litmus test. Did not Shakespeare insist: “Love is not love/ Which alters when it alteration finds” in Sonnet 116?

 

Petrarch possessed a profound knowledge of the human heart, and extraordinary address in working upon the passions and directing them as he pleased.

-Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmerman (1808)

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