There are only two weeks left in the semester, and I'm gearing up for my final paper. It won't be too bad--I just have to write a five-page critical essay on one of the Renaissance authors we read. I've decided to write about Francis Petrarch--the father of Humanism and the father of the sonnet. It's true: without Petrarch, we wouldn't have William Shakespeare.

Poor Petrarch, who was so infatuated with Laura de Noves, seems to have been somewhat neglected as a poet, being overshadowed by Giovanni Boccaccio and Dante. Petrarch's influence can't be understated, but it's interesting that neither he nor his contemporaries thought his poems would be a lasting contribution to literature. But he wasn't too shabby as a poet. Take a look at sonnet ninety (from The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Volume C), one of my favorites:

She used to let her golden hair fly free
For the wind to toy and tangle and molest;
Her eyes were brighter than the radiant west.
(Seldom they shine so now.) I used to see

Pity look out of those deep eyes on me
("It was false pity," you would now protest.)
I had love's tinder heaped within my breast;
What wonder that the flame burned furiously?

She did not walk in any mortal way,
But with angelic progress; when she spoke,
Unearthly voices sang in unison.

She seemed divine among the dreary folk
Of earth. You say she is not so today?
Well, though the bow's unbent, the wound bleeds on.

I wondered if I was going to learn anything by taking this class (it simply fulfills the humanities requirement for my degree), but I have to admit, I probably wouldn't have read some of the authors and selections on my own. (Case in point: I had no interest in reading the Genesis creation myth, and I still think it carries almost no literary value. But I did learn that, contrary to popular Christian belief, Genesis doesn't name the infamous serpent.) But I gained a deeper appreciation for poetry, and this was probably because the class wasn't drilled on rhyme, meter, alliteration, and all those literary terms no one remembers.

In any case, I'll be glad when the semester is finally over. I have an A, and the highest point total in the class, and I'm very tired.

Comments

[Angel]

hi dear, i'm a student of english literature in Iran, i liked your idea about Petrarch
wish your success