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Canzone 189: The Sea

In the canzoniere, we get to see the state of Petrarch’s mind many times, but there’s one metaphor for his state of mind that stands out to me. Canzone 189 portrays Petrarch’s state of mind as a ship at sea. The ship can be seen as his mind, with the sea and weather representing thoughts, or emotions. As we go on in the canzone, we can see that Petrarch feels a mix of negative emotions, placing the image of a sea in the middle of a storm with the rough waves of the sea. “My ship full of forgetful cargo sails, though rough seas at the midnight of a winter…”.

Ships in the stormy sea with gigantic waves Horrible storms - YouTube

As the poem goes on, Petrarch portrays his emotions by describing the weather in greater detail. “… the sail, by wet eternal winds of sighs, of hopes and of desires blowing breaks;”. Here we see that he feels lost and stuck with the sail breaking, as the sails are what help move the ship (Petrarch’s mind). At the end, he confirms this feeling of being lost, describing his lack of reasoning, and skill to move the ship. “… and I despair of ever reaching port.”. He feels he can’t overcome these negative emotions, and is doomed to be stuck in this storm.

Why does this stand out to me? To start, I love the imagery that Petrarch uses to describe his mind. I could easily imagine the rough seas, and cruel weather reading the poem, and relate to this negative blend of emotions creating a storm. Along with this, it stands out to me because it makes me think of Dante entering purgatory. Comparing the two, it creates an interesting juxtaposition. While in this canzone there’s a rough storm representing Petrarch’s unstable state of mind; Dante uses imagery of a ship in clear skies, with “The sweet color of eastern sapphire…” (Canto 1, line 13) of the ocean, showing a state of clarity after the inferno. This was something that stood to me and was interested in, as these were both very different states of mind, and the complete opposite of one another.


Canzoniere 189: Lost

‘A Mediterranean Brigantine Drifting Onto a Rocky Coast in a Storm’ painted by Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707). This was painted following Sir Thomas Wyatt’s (1503-1542) translation of Petrarca’s 189 poem.

In this poem, Petrarca speaks about his struggle to get his soul on the right path, comparing this journey to a rough storm at sea. Throughout Petrarca’s work, we repeatedly see the message of trying to get his soul on the right path and not to be swayed by Earthly possessions, and instead wanting to focus on finding out the truth about life. For example, we see this in the allegorical meaning of the Ascent of Mount Ventoux, as he also describes the difficult journey he must take in order to become enlightened as to what life really has to offer. 

We begin the first stanza with the line “My ship is full of forgetful cargo sails”, in which he uses the metaphor of a ship (which appears in several poems of his) to describe his soul. He then goes on to state how his ship is sailing through “rough seas at the midnight of winter between Charybdis and the Scylla reef”. Through this imagery, we get the message that the journey he must go through is arduous and dangerous. Petrarca even mentions the Scylla reef and Charybdis, which are two mythical sea monsters that are typically used to describe the hazardous conditions between Sicily and Italy.  

In the second stanza, we start to see Petrarca despair at his situation. He speaks about how he dreads the storm ahead and what challenges it might bring, as well as using the imagery of his sail breaking due to “wet eternal winds of sighs, of hopes and of desires”; this line essentially describes how his own hopes and wants in life are preventing him from reaching the spiritual awakening he needs. This hopeless tone continues on in the third stanza, as he provides imagery about the stormy atmosphere, saying it’s made of “a rain of tears, a mist of my disdain”. This storm continues to destroy Petrarca’s ship as it ravages the “weary ropes made up of wrong, entwined with ignorance”. 

The last stanza encompasses Petrarca’s melancholic point of view of his journey. As evident from the past three stanzas, his journey is difficult and full of obstacles, and we begin to see his hopelessness take over him. The stanza stuck out to me in particular because of the imagery he uses to describe how lost he feels while on this journey, especially when he says his skill and reason are now “dead in the waves”. This line perfectly exemplifies how feeling hopeless while on a journey, whether it’s to reach a spiritual awakening or for another cause, can make you feel as though you have no sense of reason or skill anymore, which can drive one deeper into feeling depressed and dejected. In his final line, Petrarch repeats this sentiment by saying “and I despair of ever reaching port”, where he admits that because of how difficult this journey is and his inability to think clearly, he fears that he may never reach what his ultimate goal is.

Canzoniere 61: Bound

Italian (Venetian) School; Petrarch and Laura de Noves; The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/petrarch-and-laura-de-noves-141634

Poem 61 has an evident theme of love, especially within its first moments where Petrarca describes the emotions of when he fell in love with Laura. He expresses this theme of love throughout this poem and many others, through his uses of detailed imagery and hyperboles. 

In the first stanza of this poem, Petrarca regards the very instant and place where he first met Laura as a blessing. He explains how he felt ‘bound’ to love after he laid eyes on her ‘two lovely eyes’. This same theme of being ‘bound’ to Laura’s love is evident throughout many of his poems, not just this one. He then continues to describe this love as his ‘first sweet agony’, and explains how he is now tied to this love.

In the second stanza, he uses metaphors to compare this feeling of love to being pierced through the heart with a bow, which left wounds so deep he feared they would “reach the bottom of his heart. By using this hyperbole, he gets the reader to understand his feelings of love, and how he fell so deep in love that it caused agony and pain, and ended up hurting his heart, and portrays the struggles he had to go through when it came to loving Laura. Petrarca also mentions many Roman gods throughout his poetry to get his points across. In this particular poem, he alludes to Cupid through the mention of bows and arrows to describe his love.

In the next stanza, Petrarca discusses all of his poetry, and the main catalyst for writing them. He states that all of his poetry was made to be a call out for Laura, and a way to express his love for her, and the feelings that came with it. He also talks about how this poetry was filled with ‘all the sighs, and tears, and the desire’ that came with loving her. By stating this, Petrarca gives the reader a good sense of what most of his poetry is about, and the feelings and emotions they can find within it. It also shows how he deeply cares for Laura to the point where he has to cry out her name and shed tears.

In the last and final stanza of this poem, Petrarca talks about how all of this paper he uses to write his poetry is blessed with Laura’s grace, as she is the topic for the poetry he writes about her. Petrarca also states how every thought he has only relates to Laura, and is not shared with anyone else. 

Canzoniere 319: Shackled

Throughout Il Canzoniere, Petrarca professes his love for Laura in several ways. When he talks about the weight of her death in this sonnet, for example, it gives us, as the readers, an understanding of the admiration that he has for her. Love is seemingly the main theme of a handful of his poems, including this one, however he does not always portray it as a constant beautiful feeling. For instance, this sonnet explores the complexities of love and how it can be constricting.

In the first stanza, Petrarca writes “My days, swifter than any fawn, have fled like shadows” which explicitly reveals that he has lost all sense of time. This is awfully common for people who aren’t experiencing any excitement in their life, or have no hope for their future. He also compares the duration of all the good things in his life to a wink, which effectively shows how fast these moments come and go. Lastly, when he talks about his calmest hours, which he says are few and far between, he uses the word “bittersweet” to describe them, because his mind is truly never at ease. Even when things seem to be going better for him, he constantly thinks about how much happier he would be if he and Laura were together.

The Triumph of Death, from a 1503 edition of Petrarch. Depicts Laura’s death from the Black Plague. Source: FineArtAmerica

In the next stanza, Petrarca lets out all his anger and frustration with the world. He describes it as “wretched” and “arrogant” because of the broken condition that he was left in after Laura’s death. He also condemns any man that puts their trust into the world, even calling them “blind,” because at one point he was that same man that put his hope out there in the world. He believes that he was given false hope, as he is now unhappy because the person who owns his heart is merely dust, not a person in the flesh. Even though he is fully aware that Laura is not with us, he continues to express his love for her in the third stanza, where he says that her soul (“her best form”) continues living in the Heavens and keeps him more in love.

In the final stanza, Petrarca reintroduces the idea of time passing him by. He mentions that as he gets older and his hair grays, the only thing that he can think of is Laura and what she is like. This, once again, only reinforces the sentiment that he is chained to this love for eternity.

Canzoniere 3: Vulnerable

Antonio Salamanca (1500-62)-Laura and Petrarch

Love is the genre and theme for poem 3. This poem describes how Petrarca felt when he fell in love with Larua and how it made him weak. He expresses himself and his ideas through metaphors and descriptive language. He displays a sorrowful tone throughout the poem. 

  In the first stanza, Petrarca starts with a metaphor. He states that “It was the day the sun’s ray had turned pale with pity for the suffering of his Maker”. This establishes a gloomy tone from the start of the poem. A sunray is something that is bright and is seen as something that is happy and cheerful. It turning pale suggest an unhappy feel. He then goes on is the next few lines to explain how he fell in love. He said things like “I was caught” and “I put up no fight”. This describes how Petrarca’s love for Laura engulfed him and he gave in. He uses the metaphor “your lovely eyes had bound me” in the last line to emphasize how captured he was.

In the second stanza, Petrarca explains how being in love turned out to be a bad thing. He portrays love as something to be fought against by saying “it seemed no time to be on guard against Love’s blows…”.The phrases “guard” and “against” show that Petrarca believed he needed to defend himself against love. He then goes on to say that his “misfortunes began in midst of the universal woe”. This shows how he felt like being in love negatively affected his life. The use of the word “misfortune” adds to the dark nature of this poem.

In the following stanza, Petrarca explains how love weakened him. He implies that love left him vulnerable by saying that “Love found me all disarmed”. The term “disarmed” usually refers to when someone removes a weapon from another person. In this poem, Petrarca’s weapon is his invulnerability which was taken by his love for Laura. In the next line, he states that love found a way to reach his heart through “the eyes which have become the halls and doors of tears”. This line implies that love found its way into his heart through the precise thing that is now showing his agony. Laura’s beauty is a part of the reason Petrarca loves her so much. Beauty is seen through the eyes that he now cries out of.

In the last stanza, Petrarca begins to refer to love as “him” or “his” representing it as a person. He uses this stanza to show his understanding as to why love hurts him so much. He starts off by saying that “it seems to me it did him little honor to wound me with his arrows…”. This expresses that Petrarca does not understand why love hurts him. He then goes on to say “and to you, armed, not show his bow at all.”. In this line, Petrarca is referring to Laura. Based on how good it feels to be in love with Laura, he would not suspect that it would hurt him in the end. This poem was written to demonstrate how love captured Petrarca and led to what he perceives as misfortune.

Il Sorgue: Il Fiume dell’Amore; Canzone 126:

¨Chiare, fresche et dolci acque ove le belle membra pose colei che sola a me par donna¨

Laura incorona Petrarca (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashb 1263, Firenze)


Nel tipico tono d’uomo moribondo a causa dell’amore che Petrarca sente per Laura avvia l´inizio della canzone 126 del Canzoniere la quale è compresa da cinque strofe ed un congedo.

La prima strofa, è piena di metafore dove il Poeta invoca l’attenzione dell’acqua del fiume, Le Sorgue, del ramo, dell’erba, dei fiori e dell’aria che lo circonda ad ascoltarlo giacché in questo luogo beato fu dove il poeta ha visto la sua cara Laura nuda per la prima volta. Sembra come se la natura stessa diventa una cosa viva a causa dell’amore che Laura ha per questo luogo. Allo stesso tempo, questo posto così vivo per Petrarca diventa il posto scelto da lui come un rifugio oppure letto di morte. Diverso dagli altri poemi nel Canzoniere, questo poema non ci dà nessun indizio che la causa della sua morte imminente sia la vecchiaia, se non l’Amore stesso che qui viene personificato, il quale sembra li aprisse e chiudesse gli occhi.
Nella seconda strofa, questo stesso Amore viene invocato dal Poeta, e gli supplica la morte proprio in quel posto così amato da lui e Laura. È curioso che la natura che circonda il Sorgues si ravvivi semplicemente entrando in contatto con Laura. L’amore che Laura ha per questo posto lo rende vivo. In un’altra dose ironica del poeta, l’amore che lui sente per Laura sembra causare la sua morte invece che il rinascimento. È per questa ragione che il Poeta ritorna a questo posto, non così tanto perché sia un rifugio dalla vita sociale ma perché è il posto dove ha avuto un incontro con Laura. E se lui non può godere un amore reciproco dalla sua amata, il poeta le basta essere sepolto nel luogo amato da lei.
Nel congedo, Petrarca parla direttamente alla sua canzone. Le dice che è libera di andare altrove se i suoi desideri sono stati soddisfatti. È facile supporre che i desideri di Petrarca per Laura non siano stati soddisfatti ancora perché continua il suo pellegrinaggio al suo rifugio ed è qui che desidera essere sepolto.

Canzone 129: Love

Poem 129 had a lot to do with love, more specifically the way Petrarca’s2 deep and profound love for Laura makes him feel. He conveys his emotions, ideas, and fears with very descriptive language. Continuously throughout Canzionere, Petrarca describes the feeling of bitterness and sorrow that is his love for Laura creates within him. The first stanza of the poem starts off with him saying that essentially, love “leads him on” from one place to another, and gets him through paths that are not well suited to living a peaceful life. As he weeps and sighs over and over again, throughout the poem, he finds himself wounded and sick with love but quickly recovers just by the thought of  things like “love saving you for better days.” 

In the following stanza, he creates an image for the reader, depicting him going up a high mountain feeling peace and thinking of Laura. He asks himself many different questions that come into his mind about love and how he treats himself in comparison to her. He stated “…perhaps; you’re loathsome to yourself but dear to her. Then to another thought, I pass and sigh: “Now could this be the truth? But how? But when?” This foreshadows a lot of what will be happening in this poem in the sense that he will be giving us an insight into what goes through his mind. Most of it, if not all will almost certainly relate back to Laura in some way.

Right after this in the next stanza, Petrarca gives us a glimpse of his point of view and state of mind again when he starts to see his lover’s face on a stone and “ feel love so close by.” He sees the love his soul carries as an error, but is satisfied with it, and asks that this error lasts because of his immense love for her and how his mind strays away from himself. He realizes that he does not give himself much thought in that moment and time, only Laura. This continues on in the next stanza when he states that he has “seen her many times-…..in the clear water and above green grass, alive, and in the trunk of a beech tree, and in a cloud of white…” It is almost as if his love for her consumes his every thought, and it is clear to see as the poem progresses. However, he repeats the same cycle and goes back to weeping and writing and coming back to reality “when the truth dispels.”

In the final stanza of this poem, he continues the imagery of climbing up to the highest and freest peak of the mountain, continuously weeping, writing, and thinking about Laura. However, halfway through he has an epiphany and starts thinking about how someone else might feel the same way about him, as he does when it comes to her. He stated “ Then softly to myself: How do you know, poor fool! Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence”, and this thought finally calms his soul.

Canzoniere # 271: Complex

Layka Coby 10/22/21

The genre 0f poem 271 is Love. The poet conveys his emotions, ideas, and fears through this stanza by his use of language. The language used is usually associated with unhappiness, great sorrow due to love. He shows imagery of the emotions he expresses through figurative language, using words and phrases to describe an actual event he experienced. “I’d be caught and burned and all the more for being more for being less green wood”, is a simile the author used to compare how love made them feel as they compare themselves to a tree. 

This was part of Petrarca 366 poem to and about Laura. The theme of the poem is focused around his inner conflict within himself while he is so madly in love with Laura. In this stanza he talks about the immense sorrow and pain he feels trying to get rid of and walk away from how deeply he feels for Laura. In the first stanza Petrarca states, “ The burning knot which hour after hour bound me for twenty-one entire years Death has untied; I never felt such grief, nor do I think that man can die of sorrow.” From this stanza It could be understood that the love he has experienced for this beautiful woman Laura is great and shows this by using death as an undertone to reflect the seriousness of his feelings. The next stanza states, “ Love, not yet willing to let go of me, had set another snare within the grass and with new tinder lit another fire making it very hard for me to flee”. What can be inferred by the language and emotions being reflected from this stanza is that Petrarca feels somewhat trapped in this loop whole of their feelings for Laura, every time he tries to walk away from the situation” another lit fire makes it very hard for me to flee”. He is ready to move on and get rid of the pain that comes with this love but he’s stuck by different obstacles. The last two stanzas state, “ And if it had not been for long experience of my first labors, I’d be caught and burned and all the more for being less green wood. Death has delivered me another time- broken the knot, stamped out the scattered fire- against whom neither force nor wit avails.”  He shows his willingness to go through whatever for this love he has for Laura, he will even come to  face death.  A word I would use to represent the poem would be  complex because both his feelings and language within the poem give off the impression of a complex love and situation he experiences.  

Canzoniere 159: Goddess

In poem 159, there were very vivid descriptions of Laura. In the first stanza, Pertrarca questioned where in heaven nature took the model to obtain her lovely face and show her power down here with the rest of us. This description made the person who was being talked about seem respectable and of very high power. The way Pertracra made these words come together created a perfect visualization for me about what this woman looks like. After reading this stanza, I knew the theme was love and I wanted to analyze it because of that. I love the way love is depicted in this poem, particularly the preface. The next stanza starts to include words that have overall positive definitions. For instance, the word nymph. This word was used in Greek mythology to categorize any of a large class of inferior female divinities. Nymphs were associated with fertile, growing things, including water or trees. The usage of this word provided a wholesome and superior model of the woman. Also, the word virtues was used. The second stanza states “How did a heart collect so many virtues the sum of which is guilty of my death.” I love this line of the poem because it is a play on words. A virtue is a morally good trait or quality, and it is used in the poem as something that caused death which is not something virtues are morally capable of. However, he makes it seem that her qualities were so good, that they are capable of death. 

The next stanzas really depict the depth of Laura’s beauty and the way Petrarcra felt about her. He states that ‘if a man has not yet looked upon her eyes and seen how tenderly she makes them move.’ Before he proceeds to the next stanza, this stanza proves how strongly he feels towards Laura’s eyes, which is extremely significant. Before that, he also states that ‘who seeks for divine beauty seeks in vain.’ The usage of the word vain in this instance shows that even though someone might have a high opinion on her appearance, it should not affect their perspective towards her. To summarize, the last stanza states that this man does not know how love can heal as well as kill, if he did not know the sweetness of Laura’s speech, sighs, and smile. This final stanza really drew me to this poem because of how sweet but deep the message is. Petrarca describes Laura as a perfect goddess, but he also adds these undertones of death and guilt that added a different level of emotion to his feelings about her. As I read the poem, the love was so deep it kind of reminded me of Dante and Beatrice a little bit. I really enjoyed reading about the love that was depicted in The Divine Comedy and it is interesting to see the similarities and differences in that theme with Pertrarca.