biography
| name: |
Petrarch
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| |
in full Francesco Petrarca
|
pronunciation:
[petrah(r)k]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1304–74)
|
| biography:
| Poet and scholar, born in Arezzo, NC Italy. He studied at Bologna and Avignon, where he became a clergyman. In 1327 at Avignon he first saw Laura (possibly Laure de Noves, married in 1325 to Hugo de Sade), who inspired him with a passion which has become proverbial for its constancy and purity. As the fame of his learnings grew, royal courts competed for his presence, and in 1341 he was crowned poet laureate at Rome. The earliest of the great Renaissance humanists, he wrote widely on the classics, but he is best known for the series of love poems addressed to Laura, the Canzoniere, written in vernacular Italian. The work mirrors the poet's internal struggle between reality and dream, spirituality and the pleasures of the flesh. He left Avignon in 1353 after Laura's death, and lived the rest of his life in N Italy. His writing proved to be a major influence on many authors, notably Chaucer. His chief inspiration lay, however, in his sonnet form, which was adopted, among others, by Surrey, Wyatt, and Shakespeare. |
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