Böcker av Petrarch

"David Young's version of Petrarch will refresh our images of the West's crucial lyric poet. We are given a Petrarch in our own vernacular, with echoes of Wyatt, Shakespeare, and many who come after." --Harold BloomIneffable sweetness, bold, uncanny sweetnessthat came to my eyes from her lovely face; from that day on I'd willingly have closed them, never to gaze again at lesser beauties.--from Sonnet 116Petrarch was born in Tuscany and grew up in the south of France. He lived his life in the service of the church, traveled widely, and during his lifetime was a revered, model man of letters. Petrarch's greatest gift to posterity was his Rime in vita e morta di Madonna Laura, the cycle of poems popularly known as his songbook. By turns full of wit, languor, and fawning, endlessly inventive, in a tightly composed yet ornate form they record their speaker's unrequited obsession with the woman named Laura. In the centuries after it was designed, the "Petrarchan sonnet," as it would be known, inspired the greatest love poets of the English language-from the times of Spenser and Shakespeare to our own.David Young's fresh, idiomatic version of Petrarch's poetry is the most readable and approachable that we have. In his skillful hands, Petrarch almost sounds like a poet out of our own tradition bringing the wheel of influence full circle.

The 'Canzoniere', a sequence of sonnets and other verse forms, were written over a period of about 40 years. They describe Petrarch's intense love for Laura, whom he first met in Avignon in 1327, and her effect on him after she died in 1348. The collection is an examination of the poet's growing spiritual crisis, and also explores important contemporary issues such as the role of the papacy and religion.

The full compendium of Francesco Petrarch's poetic verses, rendered in English in this high quality edition, which also includes a biography of the great poet by Thomas Campbell.Notable for being the pivotal figure whose work commenced the Italian Renaissance, Francesco Petrarca's significance is gargantuan. His personal rediscovery of authentic correspondences written by the Roman statesman and legal scholar Cicero was the spark that set the enthusiasm for the arts and sciences alight throughout Italy and later much of Europe in a trend which would span centuries. Petrarch's personal creative proclivities were for poetry, a form in which he innovated and excelled. Serving as a model for later Italian poets such as Dante and Giovanni Boccaccio, Petrarch's poems are the vivid forebear of the wellspring of lyrical creativity which underpinned the Renaissance era. For Petrarch, his life's love and foremost poetic subject was Laura de Noves, a woman who for decades he considered a purely platonic muse.