Romeo and Juliet Random Notes
Rima 134 The Petrarchan Sonnet "Laura" - The object of many of his poems, Laura is a mysterious, far-off, unreachable woman that Petrarch pines for but never gets.
Scholars argue over the reality of this woman, but Petrarch's other writings claim that she was a real woman who refused his advances because she was married to another man. He called his distant relationship to her "an overwhelming but pure love affair."
Petrarch's writing on Laura expresses both delight and despair. It hurts when he thinks about her, but he is too in love to stop. His poems are the epitome of unrequited love.
Petrarch's descriptions of Laura are lofty, flowery, and even exaggerated.
Courtly love - the medieval tradition of love between a knight and a noble woman, characterized by chivalry, flowery praise, and a lack of any real contact/consummation Petrarch Born Francesco Petracco in Tuscany (Italy) in 1304. He grew up in a fairly wealthy family and was forced by his parents to study law, though his real interests were poetry and Latin literature.
He was a prolific writer, traveler, and translator/discover-er of ancient Roman and Greek manuscripts - laid the groundwork for the Renaissance
In his dialogue The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present a story about soul mates. Aristophanes states that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. He continues that there were three genders: man, woman and the "Androgynous". Each with two sets of genitalia with the Androgynous having both male and female genitalia. The men were children of the sun, the women were children of the earth and the Androgynous were children of the moon, which was born of the sun and earth. It is said that humans had great strength at the time and threatened to conquer the gods. The gods were then faced with the prospect of destroying the humans with lightning as they had done with the Titans but then they would lose the tributes given to the gods by humans. Zeus
Scholars argue over the reality of this woman, but Petrarch's other writings claim that she was a real woman who refused his advances because she was married to another man. He called his distant relationship to her "an overwhelming but pure love affair."
Petrarch's writing on Laura expresses both delight and despair. It hurts when he thinks about her, but he is too in love to stop. His poems are the epitome of unrequited love.
Petrarch's descriptions of Laura are lofty, flowery, and even exaggerated.
Courtly love - the medieval tradition of love between a knight and a noble woman, characterized by chivalry, flowery praise, and a lack of any real contact/consummation Petrarch Born Francesco Petracco in Tuscany (Italy) in 1304. He grew up in a fairly wealthy family and was forced by his parents to study law, though his real interests were poetry and Latin literature.
He was a prolific writer, traveler, and translator/discover-er of ancient Roman and Greek manuscripts - laid the groundwork for the Renaissance
In his dialogue The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present a story about soul mates. Aristophanes states that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces. He continues that there were three genders: man, woman and the "Androgynous". Each with two sets of genitalia with the Androgynous having both male and female genitalia. The men were children of the sun, the women were children of the earth and the Androgynous were children of the moon, which was born of the sun and earth. It is said that humans had great strength at the time and threatened to conquer the gods. The gods were then faced with the prospect of destroying the humans with lightning as they had done with the Titans but then they would lose the tributes given to the gods by humans. Zeus