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Canzoniere
In concomitanza con il settimo centenario della nascita del poeta, la curatrice, tra i massimi specialisti del Petrarca volgare, conclude un lavoro durato quasi vent'anni. Commentando minuziosamente ogni verso e ogni espressione petrarchesca, il fittissimo richiamo dei testi classici e della poesia volgare precedente e coeva diventa un caleidoscopio culturale e letterario che rifrange, con varietà, ma con rigorosa precisione, il senso di ogni singola poesia e del "Canzoniere" nel suo insieme.
471 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1372
290 people are currently reading
3596 people want to read
About the author
Francesco Petrarca
1,154 books364 followersFamous Italian poet, scholar, and humanist Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, collected love lyrics in
Canzoniere
.
People often call Petrarch the earliest Renaissance "father of humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language, which the Accademia della Crusca later endorsed. People credit Petrarch with developing the sonnet. They admired and imitated his sonnets, a model for lyrical poems throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Petrarch called the Middle Ages the Dark Ages.
People often call Petrarch the earliest Renaissance "father of humanism". Based on Petrarch's works, and to a lesser extent those of Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio, Pietro Bembo in the 16th century created the model for the modern Italian language, which the Accademia della Crusca later endorsed. People credit Petrarch with developing the sonnet. They admired and imitated his sonnets, a model for lyrical poems throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Petrarch called the Middle Ages the Dark Ages.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews
March 24, 2022
Es el primer libro que abandono y en este caso no siento ni un gramo de culpabilidad porque es poesía que solo se dedica a enaltecer, alabar y endiosar a una mujer con la que el autor nunca tuvo contacto más allá de miradas y poco más.
Muy pesado para mí y creo que es la primera buena decisión que tomo en el año. Aunque me ha servido para saber algunas cosas sobre el contexto en el que se escribió obviamente lo he dejado a medias por subjetividad y no por el valor indudable que reside en sus letras en medio de todo un contexto sociocultural.
Muy pesado para mí y creo que es la primera buena decisión que tomo en el año. Aunque me ha servido para saber algunas cosas sobre el contexto en el que se escribió obviamente lo he dejado a medias por subjetividad y no por el valor indudable que reside en sus letras en medio de todo un contexto sociocultural.
April 28, 2023
3, 75
Istoricii literari vorbesc adesea (și pe bună dreptate) despre o iubire petrarchiană. Este vorba de o iubire care se naște din absență și frustrare și se hrănește tot din frustrare. Și, mai ales, este o iubire care nu încetează în pofida dispariției persoanei iubite, ca în cazul la fel de ilustru al lui Dante. E ceea ce trubadurii au numit amor de lonh: iubirea de departe. Realitatea acestei iubiri rămîne, totuși, ipotetică.
Francesco Petrarca (1304 - 1374) a scris (după 1348) pe manuscrisul Eneidei lui Vergiliu, chiar la început, „un epigraf tandru și solemn, în care se conjugă toate părțile unui discurs de dragoste” (Georges Duby):
„Laura, celebră prin virtuțile ei și prin poemele mele care au slăvit-o pe îndelete, apărută în fața ochilor mei în timpul primei mele adolescențe, în anul Domnului 1328, la 6 aprilie dimineața, în biserica Sainte-Claire din Avignon; și în același oraș, în aceeași lună aprilie, în a șasea zi a lunii, la aceeași oră a dimineții, sustrasă luminii, atunci cînd eram, din păcate, la Verona, neștiutor de ceea ce soarta ticluia. Funesta veste mi-a ajuns la Parma, printr-o scrisoare a dragului meu Ludovic, la 19 mai 1348 dimineața. Trupul ei atît de curat și-atît de frumos a fost depus la mănăstirea fraților minoriți, chiar în ziua morții sale, către seară. Cît despre sufletul ei, ca acela al africanului despre care vorbește Seneca, s-a întors în cer de unde coborîse, este credința mea adîncă”.
Se cunosc prea puține date despre Laura, muza poetului. Numele ei întreg a fost, se pare, Laura de Noves. În 1328, era deja soția contelui Hugues de Sade (un strămoș al marchizului de Sade). Femeia a murit în timpul epidemiei de ciumă bubonică din 1348 (la vîrsta de 38 de ani).
Petrarca i-a lăudat frumusețea aleasă și virtuțile-i incomparabile în „Rime sparse”. Abia în Renaștere, colecția celor 366 de poeme a primit numele de Il Canzoniere. Deși iubirea lui Petrarca pentru Laura este o certitudine subiectivă (de care numai poetul este răspunzător), nu se știe dacă „amanții” s-au întîlnit și în afara bisericii ori dacă și-au vorbit vreodată. Mai degrabă, nu...
Aș remarca, în încheiere, mențiunea lipsită de orice smerenie a poetului: Laura a devenit cunoscută îndeosebi prin versurile sale. Oricît de îndrăgostit ar fi, poetul rămîne nu numai un damnat, ci și un vanitos.
***
Fecioară, ea-i țărînă și-n durere
mă lasă azi ca-n lacrimi altădată.
N-a bănuit nimic din tot ce pară
și chin mi-a fost; dar nici altfel răsplată
n-aș fi avut, căci orice altă vrere
pierzanie mi-ar fi fost și ei ocară.
Ci tu, stăpînă-n cer, zeiță rară,
(de pot astfel a-ți spune),
Fecioară, tu, ce-n lume
toate le vezi, tu poți ce-odinioară ea nu putea
nici pătrunzînd în gîndu-mi.
Adună-ți glorie ție
și pace mie, lacrima uscîndu-mi.
Din păcate, după atîtea secole, sonetele lui Petrarca și-au pierdut din strălucire.
Istoricii literari vorbesc adesea (și pe bună dreptate) despre o iubire petrarchiană. Este vorba de o iubire care se naște din absență și frustrare și se hrănește tot din frustrare. Și, mai ales, este o iubire care nu încetează în pofida dispariției persoanei iubite, ca în cazul la fel de ilustru al lui Dante. E ceea ce trubadurii au numit amor de lonh: iubirea de departe. Realitatea acestei iubiri rămîne, totuși, ipotetică.
Francesco Petrarca (1304 - 1374) a scris (după 1348) pe manuscrisul Eneidei lui Vergiliu, chiar la început, „un epigraf tandru și solemn, în care se conjugă toate părțile unui discurs de dragoste” (Georges Duby):
„Laura, celebră prin virtuțile ei și prin poemele mele care au slăvit-o pe îndelete, apărută în fața ochilor mei în timpul primei mele adolescențe, în anul Domnului 1328, la 6 aprilie dimineața, în biserica Sainte-Claire din Avignon; și în același oraș, în aceeași lună aprilie, în a șasea zi a lunii, la aceeași oră a dimineții, sustrasă luminii, atunci cînd eram, din păcate, la Verona, neștiutor de ceea ce soarta ticluia. Funesta veste mi-a ajuns la Parma, printr-o scrisoare a dragului meu Ludovic, la 19 mai 1348 dimineața. Trupul ei atît de curat și-atît de frumos a fost depus la mănăstirea fraților minoriți, chiar în ziua morții sale, către seară. Cît despre sufletul ei, ca acela al africanului despre care vorbește Seneca, s-a întors în cer de unde coborîse, este credința mea adîncă”.
Se cunosc prea puține date despre Laura, muza poetului. Numele ei întreg a fost, se pare, Laura de Noves. În 1328, era deja soția contelui Hugues de Sade (un strămoș al marchizului de Sade). Femeia a murit în timpul epidemiei de ciumă bubonică din 1348 (la vîrsta de 38 de ani).
Petrarca i-a lăudat frumusețea aleasă și virtuțile-i incomparabile în „Rime sparse”. Abia în Renaștere, colecția celor 366 de poeme a primit numele de Il Canzoniere. Deși iubirea lui Petrarca pentru Laura este o certitudine subiectivă (de care numai poetul este răspunzător), nu se știe dacă „amanții” s-au întîlnit și în afara bisericii ori dacă și-au vorbit vreodată. Mai degrabă, nu...
Aș remarca, în încheiere, mențiunea lipsită de orice smerenie a poetului: Laura a devenit cunoscută îndeosebi prin versurile sale. Oricît de îndrăgostit ar fi, poetul rămîne nu numai un damnat, ci și un vanitos.
***
Fecioară, ea-i țărînă și-n durere
mă lasă azi ca-n lacrimi altădată.
N-a bănuit nimic din tot ce pară
și chin mi-a fost; dar nici altfel răsplată
n-aș fi avut, căci orice altă vrere
pierzanie mi-ar fi fost și ei ocară.
Ci tu, stăpînă-n cer, zeiță rară,
(de pot astfel a-ți spune),
Fecioară, tu, ce-n lume
toate le vezi, tu poți ce-odinioară ea nu putea
nici pătrunzînd în gîndu-mi.
Adună-ți glorie ție
și pace mie, lacrima uscîndu-mi.
Din păcate, după atîtea secole, sonetele lui Petrarca și-au pierdut din strălucire.
Read
May 22, 2018la vita fugge, e non s'arresta una ora,
e la morte vien dietro a gran giornate,
e le cose presenti e le passate
mi danno guerra, e le future ancora;
e il rimembrare e l'aspettar m'accora,
or quinci or quindi, sì che 'n meritate,
se non ch'io di me stesso vietate,
i' sarei già di questi pensier fora.
Tornami avanti, s'alcun dolce mai
ebbe 'l cor tristo; e poi da l'altra parte
peggio al mio navigar turbati i venti;
peggio fortuna in porto, e stanco omai
il mio nocchiere, e rotte àrbore e sarte,
e i lumi bei, che mirar soglio, spenti.
da cui mi sembra Konstantinos Kavafis abbia preso (plagiando?) la sua "Le candele", non so se qualcuno se n'è mai accorto (ci sono anche alcune parole che ricorrono in entrambe le poesie come "accora", "spenti/e" ecc.). forse un tantino più cupo petrarca, che non vede candele accese, dorate e calde, ma un porto in tempesta, rotte le navi e i bei lumi spenti.
Stanno i giorni futuri innanzi a noi
come una fila di candele accese,
dorate, calde e vivide.
Restano indietro i giorni del passato,
penosa riga di candele spente:
le più vicine danno fumo ancora,
fredde, disfatte, e storte.
Non le voglio vedere: m'accora il loro aspetto,
la memoria m'accora il loro antico lume.
E guardo avanti le candele accese.
Non mi voglio voltare, ch'io non scorga, in un brivido,
come s'allunga presto la tenebrosa riga,
come crescono presto le mie candele spente.
vabbè poi ci sarebbe anche lui, ma il tema insomma è un bel tarlo dell'umanità. la vita fugge e non s'arresta una ora...
Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus...
e la morte vien dietro a gran giornate,
e le cose presenti e le passate
mi danno guerra, e le future ancora;
e il rimembrare e l'aspettar m'accora,
or quinci or quindi, sì che 'n meritate,
se non ch'io di me stesso vietate,
i' sarei già di questi pensier fora.
Tornami avanti, s'alcun dolce mai
ebbe 'l cor tristo; e poi da l'altra parte
peggio al mio navigar turbati i venti;
peggio fortuna in porto, e stanco omai
il mio nocchiere, e rotte àrbore e sarte,
e i lumi bei, che mirar soglio, spenti.
da cui mi sembra Konstantinos Kavafis abbia preso (plagiando?) la sua "Le candele", non so se qualcuno se n'è mai accorto (ci sono anche alcune parole che ricorrono in entrambe le poesie come "accora", "spenti/e" ecc.). forse un tantino più cupo petrarca, che non vede candele accese, dorate e calde, ma un porto in tempesta, rotte le navi e i bei lumi spenti.
Stanno i giorni futuri innanzi a noi
come una fila di candele accese,
dorate, calde e vivide.
Restano indietro i giorni del passato,
penosa riga di candele spente:
le più vicine danno fumo ancora,
fredde, disfatte, e storte.
Non le voglio vedere: m'accora il loro aspetto,
la memoria m'accora il loro antico lume.
E guardo avanti le candele accese.
Non mi voglio voltare, ch'io non scorga, in un brivido,
come s'allunga presto la tenebrosa riga,
come crescono presto le mie candele spente.
vabbè poi ci sarebbe anche lui, ma il tema insomma è un bel tarlo dell'umanità. la vita fugge e non s'arresta una ora...
Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus...
May 21, 2018
Quel rosignuol, che sì soave piagne
forse suoi figli, o sua cara consorte,
di dolcezza empie il cielo e le campagne
con tante note sì pietose e scorte,
e tutta notte par che m'accompagne,
e mi rammente la mia dura sorte:
ch'altri che me non ho di ch'i' mi lagne,
ché 'n dee non credev'io regnasse Morte.
O che lieve è inganar chi s'assecura!
Que' duo bei lumi assai più che 'l sol chiari
chi pensò mai veder far terra oscura?
Or cognosco io che mia fera ventura
vuol che vivendo e lacrimando impari
come nulla qua giù diletta e dura.
forse suoi figli, o sua cara consorte,
di dolcezza empie il cielo e le campagne
con tante note sì pietose e scorte,
e tutta notte par che m'accompagne,
e mi rammente la mia dura sorte:
ch'altri che me non ho di ch'i' mi lagne,
ché 'n dee non credev'io regnasse Morte.
O che lieve è inganar chi s'assecura!
Que' duo bei lumi assai più che 'l sol chiari
chi pensò mai veder far terra oscura?
Or cognosco io che mia fera ventura
vuol che vivendo e lacrimando impari
come nulla qua giù diletta e dura.
November 8, 2016
Am obosit de când mă-ntreb cu gândul
cum n-obosesc gândindu-mă la tine,
și cum de rabd povara de suspine
când firul vieții-mi pot scurta curmându-l,
și cum vorbind de ochii tăi, de blândul
tău chip mereu, nu piere glasu-n mine,
nu-mi seacă limba, sângele în vine
chemându-te zile și nopți de-a rândul,
cum de mai pot bieții mei pași să bată
cărările pe urma ta domoală,
cum nu-s sătui zadarnic să se zbată,
și cum de încă nu-mi găsesc cerneală
ca să te cânt: Iubirea-i vinovată
dac-am dat greș; în artă nu-i greșeală.
Read
August 7, 2010With you, dear Internet, I can be brutally honest: I was not in the market for a volume of Petrarch's poetry. Beyond the few sonnets I had read in classes scattered throughout my liberal arts education, this master of the early Italian Renaissance did not make the short list, or even the long list, of poets I intended to investigate further. No, I must admit that I was entirely seduced by Dean Nicastro's lovely cover art, which graces the new David Young translation of Petrarch's Canzoniere, put out by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Despite the Harold Bloom blurb marring the back of this beauty, the grace and simplicity of laurel leaves on marbled cream conquered my heart—much like Petrarch's own was conquered upon spying Laura that fateful day in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon. Luckily, unlike Petrarch, I didn't have to pine and moan in solitude; I could buy this pretty prize, bring it home, and ravish it at my leisure.
Which has turned out to be an extremely slow leisure indeed. I've been making my way through these poems since February, my friends, and am only spurred on to finish off the last twenty pages and write it up because people I told about it back then are starting to look at me funny when I meet them in the virtual street. It's not that I haven't been enjoying them, but it's an odd kind of enjoyment, and it's made me realize that I do not read poetry at the same pace, or in the same way, as prose, nor should I try to force myself into doing so. Poetry, after all, is so condensed—a professor of mine once defined it as "language under pressure"—maybe it shouldn't be consumed at the same rate a novel would be, at least not by me.
That said, there is a certain novelistic quality about reading all 366 of the Canzoniere in order. Although each sonnet, sestina, or ballata seems to dwell in exactly the same emotional space as the one before it, a slow progression does take place as the years gradually unfold and the speaker's relationship to his own unrequited love evolves. The early poems give us a man struck by the full force of new infatuation; as it becomes clear that he will never successfully woo his lady (Laura was, unfortunately, already married), he struggles with anger and resentment, which alternate with attempts at acceptance and religious feeling. Every year that passes is marked with an "anniversary" sonnet, so the reader knows when the speaker has loved Laura for six, ten, eighteen years. The speaker's emotional landscape dips and crests; it is marked by such momentous events as a few words exchanged with Laura in public square, or a moment when she allows him to touch her hand. At times he rues the day he ever saw her, and at others affirms she alone gives his life meaning. He is beginning to face the prospect of growing old together (yet apart), when he begins to experience ominous forebodings, and indeed, Laura's sudden death soon strikes him a tremendous blow. The "ominous foreboding" sonnets were some of the poems I found the most interesting, full of atmospheric feeling:
The image of a ghostly Laura delivering the line "Don't you recall that evening we met last, / when I ran out of time...?" strikes me as deliciously Gothic, an impression that only grows when, thirty poems further on, he perceives her spirit returning to the mortal world to haunt and console him. As the narrator continues to struggle with grief and draw toward his own death, one realizes what a dynamic and really quite modern character study the Canzoniere, as a whole, make up.
That said, there are also difficult things about reading Petrarch, and at the top of that list for me was the simply overwhelming influence that the man has had on every lyric poet who followed him. Like all game-defining works, the original sometimes comes to seem as tiredly clichéd as all its successors. At times I could imagine myself into a world before Shakespeare, before Milton, before Dickinson and Eliot, and begin to grasp the hugeness of Petrarch's accomplishment and influence, as in the poems against which Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" sonnets were likely reacting ("A lady much more splendid than the sun"; "her golden hair was loosened to the breeze"), or #190, the likely inspiration for Sir Thomas Wyatt's great "Whoso list to hunt" sonnet. But at other times I failed to make the imaginative leap back to the fourteenth century, and Petrarch's verses came off somewhat stale as a result. True, there were many, many gorgeous lines and passages, ones that reached out and grabbed my language-loving heart:
But there was no one poem that sustained this kind of arresting, tactile energy that is the heart of poetry to me. Having read the Canzoniere is, I find, intellectually rewarding but not emotionally exhilarating.
And to be honest, I think part of the reason for that is simply my lack of sympathy for the massive project of amorous angst and sentimentality that Petrarch, probably never suspecting what a can of worms he was opening, nevertheless touched off in Western culture. To put it bluntly, it takes a lot for me to love a work about self-loathing and unrequited love. I don't believe in true love at first sight, or in some kind of courtly ideal of valuing one's life at nothing in exchange for a glance or a handkerchief. I have a high capacity for making allowances for a writer's time and place; I do well with Chaucer and Homer and the author of Beowulf. But in Petrarch I felt I was meeting the well-spring of a set of ideas against which I actively rail on an almost daily basis, and I couldn't quite get past that. Love as self-destruction is just not an idea I can tolerate, especially when paired with the veneration of the beloved as an object. These ideas may remain insanely popular in our culture, but they're not romantic; they're tremendously harmful. They are (and yes, Mom, I do believe this is the appropriate language for this situation) jacked. the fuck. up.
I mean, it's a lovely and well-crafted poem from a technical point of view, but speaking as a pragmatist, just...no. No! No blind souls consenting to their own deaths! No casting yourself as a helpless moth drawn to the flame! No, good sir! I'll restrain myself from an analysis of the sonnets in which Petrarch deconstructs Laura into her component body parts, venerating at one moment her hand, at another her eyes, as if they were disconnected entities. Suffice to say, my appreciation of the cycle suffered due to my dislike of the now-persistent tropes Petrarch pioneered all those centuries ago.
Nevertheless, I certainly did enjoy these poems to an extent, and I'm glad I read them all, since one of my favorite things about the volume was witnessing the slow progression and growth of the speaker's character. I'll just be sure to read some, I don't know, Seamus Heaney or something next, to cleanse my poetic palate.
Which has turned out to be an extremely slow leisure indeed. I've been making my way through these poems since February, my friends, and am only spurred on to finish off the last twenty pages and write it up because people I told about it back then are starting to look at me funny when I meet them in the virtual street. It's not that I haven't been enjoying them, but it's an odd kind of enjoyment, and it's made me realize that I do not read poetry at the same pace, or in the same way, as prose, nor should I try to force myself into doing so. Poetry, after all, is so condensed—a professor of mine once defined it as "language under pressure"—maybe it shouldn't be consumed at the same rate a novel would be, at least not by me.
That said, there is a certain novelistic quality about reading all 366 of the Canzoniere in order. Although each sonnet, sestina, or ballata seems to dwell in exactly the same emotional space as the one before it, a slow progression does take place as the years gradually unfold and the speaker's relationship to his own unrequited love evolves. The early poems give us a man struck by the full force of new infatuation; as it becomes clear that he will never successfully woo his lady (Laura was, unfortunately, already married), he struggles with anger and resentment, which alternate with attempts at acceptance and religious feeling. Every year that passes is marked with an "anniversary" sonnet, so the reader knows when the speaker has loved Laura for six, ten, eighteen years. The speaker's emotional landscape dips and crests; it is marked by such momentous events as a few words exchanged with Laura in public square, or a moment when she allows him to touch her hand. At times he rues the day he ever saw her, and at others affirms she alone gives his life meaning. He is beginning to face the prospect of growing old together (yet apart), when he begins to experience ominous forebodings, and indeed, Laura's sudden death soon strikes him a tremendous blow. The "ominous foreboding" sonnets were some of the poems I found the most interesting, full of atmospheric feeling:
My lady used to visit me in sleep,
though far away, and her sight would console me,
but now she frightens and depresses me
and I've no shield against my gloom and fear;
for now I seem to see in her sweet face
true pity mixing in with heavy pain,
and I hear things that tell my heart it must
divest itself of any joy or hope.
"Don't you recall that evening we met last,
when I ran out of time," she says, "and left
you standing there, your eyes filled up with tears?
"I couldn't and I didn't tell you then
what I must now admit is proved and true:
you must not hope to see me on this earth."
The image of a ghostly Laura delivering the line "Don't you recall that evening we met last, / when I ran out of time...?" strikes me as deliciously Gothic, an impression that only grows when, thirty poems further on, he perceives her spirit returning to the mortal world to haunt and console him. As the narrator continues to struggle with grief and draw toward his own death, one realizes what a dynamic and really quite modern character study the Canzoniere, as a whole, make up.
That said, there are also difficult things about reading Petrarch, and at the top of that list for me was the simply overwhelming influence that the man has had on every lyric poet who followed him. Like all game-defining works, the original sometimes comes to seem as tiredly clichéd as all its successors. At times I could imagine myself into a world before Shakespeare, before Milton, before Dickinson and Eliot, and begin to grasp the hugeness of Petrarch's accomplishment and influence, as in the poems against which Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" sonnets were likely reacting ("A lady much more splendid than the sun"; "her golden hair was loosened to the breeze"), or #190, the likely inspiration for Sir Thomas Wyatt's great "Whoso list to hunt" sonnet. But at other times I failed to make the imaginative leap back to the fourteenth century, and Petrarch's verses came off somewhat stale as a result. True, there were many, many gorgeous lines and passages, ones that reached out and grabbed my language-loving heart:
Below the foothills where she first put on
the lovely garment of her earthly limbs ... (#8)
I walked along beloved riverbanks
from that time on ... (#23)
diamond perhaps, or maybe lovely marble
all white with fear, ... (#51)
that god you follow leaves you pale and wan ... (#58)
she leads a mob of armored sighs around,
this lovely enemy of Love and me. (#169)
that same evergreen I love so well,
despite the ways its shadows make me sad. (#181)
I live in fear, in a perpetual war,
I am no longer what I was ... (#252)
My soul, caught up between opposing glories,
experienced things I still don't understand:
celestial joy along with some sweet strangeness. (#257)
the snares and nets and birdlimes set by Love ... (#263)
But there was no one poem that sustained this kind of arresting, tactile energy that is the heart of poetry to me. Having read the Canzoniere is, I find, intellectually rewarding but not emotionally exhilarating.
And to be honest, I think part of the reason for that is simply my lack of sympathy for the massive project of amorous angst and sentimentality that Petrarch, probably never suspecting what a can of worms he was opening, nevertheless touched off in Western culture. To put it bluntly, it takes a lot for me to love a work about self-loathing and unrequited love. I don't believe in true love at first sight, or in some kind of courtly ideal of valuing one's life at nothing in exchange for a glance or a handkerchief. I have a high capacity for making allowances for a writer's time and place; I do well with Chaucer and Homer and the author of Beowulf. But in Petrarch I felt I was meeting the well-spring of a set of ideas against which I actively rail on an almost daily basis, and I couldn't quite get past that. Love as self-destruction is just not an idea I can tolerate, especially when paired with the veneration of the beloved as an object. These ideas may remain insanely popular in our culture, but they're not romantic; they're tremendously harmful. They are (and yes, Mom, I do believe this is the appropriate language for this situation) jacked. the fuck. up.
The way a simple butterfly, in summer,
will sometimes fly, while looking for the light,
right into someone's eyes, in its desire,
whereby it kills itself and causes pain;
so I run always toward my fated sun,
her eyes, from which such sweetness comes to me,
since Love cares nothing for the curb of reason
and judgment is quite vanquished by desire.
And I can see quite well how they avoid me,
and I well know that I will die from this,
because my strength cannot withstand the pain;
but oh, how sweetly Love does dazzle me
so that I wail some other's pain, not mine,
and my blind soul consents to her own death.
I mean, it's a lovely and well-crafted poem from a technical point of view, but speaking as a pragmatist, just...no. No! No blind souls consenting to their own deaths! No casting yourself as a helpless moth drawn to the flame! No, good sir! I'll restrain myself from an analysis of the sonnets in which Petrarch deconstructs Laura into her component body parts, venerating at one moment her hand, at another her eyes, as if they were disconnected entities. Suffice to say, my appreciation of the cycle suffered due to my dislike of the now-persistent tropes Petrarch pioneered all those centuries ago.
Nevertheless, I certainly did enjoy these poems to an extent, and I'm glad I read them all, since one of my favorite things about the volume was witnessing the slow progression and growth of the speaker's character. I'll just be sure to read some, I don't know, Seamus Heaney or something next, to cleanse my poetic palate.
June 6, 2021
Note - currently, and maybe forever, Goodreads has combined Mark Musa's and David Young's translations into a single book record. Combined review:
Petrarch lived 1304-1374, and wrote the Canzoniere from roughly from 1327 to his death.
20. Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta by Mark Musa
introduction assisted by Barbara Manfredi
published: 1996
format: 795-page paperback with original and English translation on facing pages. I read 497 pages.
acquired: Feb 18
read: Feb 18 – May 23
time reading: 36:06, 4.35 mpp
rating: 4
about the author: Mark Musa was an American translator 1934-2014
21. The Poetry of Petrarch by David Young
published: 2004
format: 288-page paperback
acquired: 2018
read: Feb 1- May 23
time reading: 14:53, 3.8 mpp
about the author: David Young was born 1936 in Davenport, IA, is professor at Oberlin College, in Ohio, since 1986
It was April 6, 1327 that the 23-yr-old Petrarch fell in lust or love with the sight of a married young woman in Avignon. And he apparently began writing his sonnets and other poems in the moment. For 19 years he would moan over this unrequired love, if not a stalker, certainly a great annoyance. His poems deflect and disarm criticism by personifying love and writing to love, in frustration, in gratitude, in humor, in bitter anger, in tears and distanced resignation. As he puts it in poem 69, "And I am one of those who thrives on weeping". Much of these years he lived in small mountain village, isolated except for servants. And his natural observations, his sense of the beauty of nature in isolation, infuse his poems. Also, there are aspects of time, aging, fate & death ("this way she winds and unwinds/ the spool of life that has been given me") and, in many subtle ways, faith. Then in 1348 the plague arrived in Avignon and took his Laura. The moaning poet changes, something broke. As a writer something deeper seems to happen as his hopes, however false they were, have ended in nothing. It's a bitter contact with reality.
Petrarch wrote and rewrote and resorted these poems through his life, even the early ones. So, as with much of what's here, much of the in-the-moment feel is fictional. But it coalesces. I never really got on with this younger Petrarch, or the fictional one anyway, and found myself getting annoyed as he waxed on and on. But this later Petrarch I connected with. When I read, "Perhaps there was a time when love was sweet/(although I know not when), but now there’s nothing/more bitter! ", it resonated.
In Litsy I put in this way: What to make of this? Well... it doesn‘t translate well despite inspiring efforts and imitation (like Shakespeare & Thomas Wyatt). P moans, a lot, and then Laura dies and then, well, he moans more. But the 1st ones are melodramatic stalker moans, 2nd ones rooted in something maybe deeper, more meaningful. Overall an odd experience, but an experience.
translations
The Poetry of Petrarch by David Young (2004)
This was the first translation I tried. Young uses minimal notes and that didn‘t work for me. So I picked up two other translations. His uses a plain language poetic translation. That‘s odd in places. And his translation sometimes contradicted Mark Musa‘s (who is probably more accurate.) But Young reads easy and will get you through this in a nice way of you are willing to go with his flow. (I wasn‘t entirely willing).
Selected Sonnets, Odes, and Letters by Thomas G. Bergin (1966)
Thanks to Young, I discovered this oddball anthology from 1966. It forms something like a cabinet of curiosities. It collects translations of about half of P‘s full 366 poem Canzoniere. Highlights are the older poets like Geoffrey Chaucer (translating in 1384!), Thomas Wyatt, and Henry, Earl of Surrey. And I really liked all the Morris Bishop and Joseph Auslander. Lowlights are painfully forced rhyming and one where the translator chose the word “blithe” to be used over and over again in a long poem. Overall it has a Victorian feel and very poor translation accuracy. Since i had more accurate translations available I found this great fun.
One add thing about Bergin. Near the end Petrarch introduces a bit of humor, altering the impact of his more serious closing poems. Bergin skips these. So reading only his selections, one is left with a heartful darkness that is far more complete than is truly there.
Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta by Mark Musa (1996)
Musa was my rock here. He keeps the translation accurate and has extensive, if imperfect, notes. His poetry quality varies and almost always compromises itself in favor of accuracy. It's his notes I both really appreciated, and complained about. If he doesn't explain something, I had no where to turn.
In Musa's credit, there is this stanza from poem 126, an image that maybe has a touch of magic here, but in other translations left me flat. In Italian, it's apparently a highlight.
The thing with Petrarch is there can probably be no perfect translation. Each I came across had strengths and weaknesses. Only Musa had good notes...but I have to acknowledge I've come across works with better notes (Dante). So there is probably room for a work-of-love kind of annotation in English.
Petrarch lived 1304-1374, and wrote the Canzoniere from roughly from 1327 to his death.
20. Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta by Mark Musa
introduction assisted by Barbara Manfredi
published: 1996
format: 795-page paperback with original and English translation on facing pages. I read 497 pages.
acquired: Feb 18
read: Feb 18 – May 23
time reading: 36:06, 4.35 mpp
rating: 4
about the author: Mark Musa was an American translator 1934-2014
21. The Poetry of Petrarch by David Young
published: 2004
format: 288-page paperback
acquired: 2018
read: Feb 1- May 23
time reading: 14:53, 3.8 mpp
about the author: David Young was born 1936 in Davenport, IA, is professor at Oberlin College, in Ohio, since 1986
It was April 6, 1327 that the 23-yr-old Petrarch fell in lust or love with the sight of a married young woman in Avignon. And he apparently began writing his sonnets and other poems in the moment. For 19 years he would moan over this unrequired love, if not a stalker, certainly a great annoyance. His poems deflect and disarm criticism by personifying love and writing to love, in frustration, in gratitude, in humor, in bitter anger, in tears and distanced resignation. As he puts it in poem 69, "And I am one of those who thrives on weeping". Much of these years he lived in small mountain village, isolated except for servants. And his natural observations, his sense of the beauty of nature in isolation, infuse his poems. Also, there are aspects of time, aging, fate & death ("this way she winds and unwinds/ the spool of life that has been given me") and, in many subtle ways, faith. Then in 1348 the plague arrived in Avignon and took his Laura. The moaning poet changes, something broke. As a writer something deeper seems to happen as his hopes, however false they were, have ended in nothing. It's a bitter contact with reality.
In truth we are nothing but dust and shadow;
in truth desire is both blind and greedy;
in truth all hope turns out to be deceiving.
Petrarch wrote and rewrote and resorted these poems through his life, even the early ones. So, as with much of what's here, much of the in-the-moment feel is fictional. But it coalesces. I never really got on with this younger Petrarch, or the fictional one anyway, and found myself getting annoyed as he waxed on and on. But this later Petrarch I connected with. When I read, "Perhaps there was a time when love was sweet/(although I know not when), but now there’s nothing/more bitter! ", it resonated.
In Litsy I put in this way: What to make of this? Well... it doesn‘t translate well despite inspiring efforts and imitation (like Shakespeare & Thomas Wyatt). P moans, a lot, and then Laura dies and then, well, he moans more. But the 1st ones are melodramatic stalker moans, 2nd ones rooted in something maybe deeper, more meaningful. Overall an odd experience, but an experience.
translations
The Poetry of Petrarch by David Young (2004)
This was the first translation I tried. Young uses minimal notes and that didn‘t work for me. So I picked up two other translations. His uses a plain language poetic translation. That‘s odd in places. And his translation sometimes contradicted Mark Musa‘s (who is probably more accurate.) But Young reads easy and will get you through this in a nice way of you are willing to go with his flow. (I wasn‘t entirely willing).
Selected Sonnets, Odes, and Letters by Thomas G. Bergin (1966)
Thanks to Young, I discovered this oddball anthology from 1966. It forms something like a cabinet of curiosities. It collects translations of about half of P‘s full 366 poem Canzoniere. Highlights are the older poets like Geoffrey Chaucer (translating in 1384!), Thomas Wyatt, and Henry, Earl of Surrey. And I really liked all the Morris Bishop and Joseph Auslander. Lowlights are painfully forced rhyming and one where the translator chose the word “blithe” to be used over and over again in a long poem. Overall it has a Victorian feel and very poor translation accuracy. Since i had more accurate translations available I found this great fun.
One add thing about Bergin. Near the end Petrarch introduces a bit of humor, altering the impact of his more serious closing poems. Bergin skips these. So reading only his selections, one is left with a heartful darkness that is far more complete than is truly there.
Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta by Mark Musa (1996)
Musa was my rock here. He keeps the translation accurate and has extensive, if imperfect, notes. His poetry quality varies and almost always compromises itself in favor of accuracy. It's his notes I both really appreciated, and complained about. If he doesn't explain something, I had no where to turn.
In Musa's credit, there is this stanza from poem 126, an image that maybe has a touch of magic here, but in other translations left me flat. In Italian, it's apparently a highlight.
Falling from gracious boughs,
I sweetly call to mind,
were flowers in a rain upon her bosom,
and she was sitting there
humble in such glory
now covered in a shower of love's blooms:
a flower falling on her lap,
some fell on her blond curls,
like pearls set into gold
they seemed to me that day;
some fell to rest on ground, some on the water,
and some in lovelike wandering
were circling down and saying, "Here Love reigns."
The thing with Petrarch is there can probably be no perfect translation. Each I came across had strengths and weaknesses. Only Musa had good notes...but I have to acknowledge I've come across works with better notes (Dante). So there is probably room for a work-of-love kind of annotation in English.
September 24, 2022
YouTube kanalımda İtalyan Edebiyatı'na başlangıç yapabileceğiniz kitap önerilerimden bahsettim: https://youtu.be/nTxrw0TosEg
Bu kitabın incelemesini yazıyor olmak çok farklı bir duygu. Çünkü ne kadar kıyıda köşede kalmış ama içinde muhteşem cevherler bulunan bir kitaptır bu! Bu incelemeyle birlikte Canzoniere kitabının okunma ya da okunacak listesine alınma sayısını birkaç kişi bile artırsam kafi.
Dante Alighieri'nin Yeni Hayat kitabında anlattığı ve karşılıksız olarak sonsuzca sevdiği kadını Beatrice için dediği bir cümle var :
"Bugüne kadar hiçbir kadın hakkında yazılmamış şeyleri, sevdiğim kadın için yazmayı niyet ediyorum."
Sanırım ki, Dante Yeni Hayat kitabında Beatrice'i, Şükrü Erbaş Yaşıyoruz Sessizce kitabında Hatice Erbaş'ı, Marcel Proust ise Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisinde Albertine'i betimleyebilmek için aynı uğraş içerisine giriyor. İşte, aynı şeyleri Petrarca'nın Laura'sı için söyleyebiliriz. Yukarıdaki yazarlar nasıl öldükten sonra ardında yarım kalmış bir erkek kalbi bırakan yalnızlaşmış ve o kadının hayalet imgesini ölüler diyarında düşünüp de karşısında yaşıyormuşcasına kabullenmemeye alışmak isteyen yazarlarsa, Petrarca için de aynı şeyleri söylemem gerek.
"Günde bin kez ölür, bin kez doğarım,
O kadar uzağım kurtuluşumdan." (s. 235)
Mesela Petrarca, bin kez ölüp bin kez doğduğunu hissediyormuş. İnsanın kurtuluşundan uzak olduğunu söylemesi bir dizede bu kadar mı güzel anlatılır arkadaş? İtalya, Rönesans dönemine girmeden önce gerçekten çok değerli yazarlara ev sahipliği yapmış bir ülke. Şairlerin şairi Vergilius önderliğinde Ovidius, Dante, Horatius, Petrarca gibi isimler ne kadar da bizim tarafımızdan tanınmayı bekleyen cevherlerdir!
Sevgilisi Laura öldüğü için onun ölümünü kabullenemeyip yaşıyormuşcasına bir hayat yaşamak isteyen Petrarca, öyle ki bazen Şükrü Erbaş'ın Yaşıyoruz Sessizce kitabının 77. sayfasındaki gibi bir ruh haline bürünüyor: "Öyle bir acı ki bu, ölen yaşayanda her gün yeniden ölüyor, yaşayan ağlamadan kimseyi sevemiyor." Ölenin yaşayanda her gün yeniden öldüğü, Petrarca'yı binlerce kez öldürüp binlerce kez doğuran, gözyaşı şelaleleriyle Styx nehrinin unutkanlık mitine akmak isteyen bir adamın, ne kadar uzaklaşmak isterse o kadar yakınlaştığı, ne kadar yakınlaşmak isterse de o kadar uzaklaştığı bir kitabıdır Canzoniere.
Bazen eski arzularımızı unuttuğumuzu düşünürüz, yeni arzular bizim için çok çekicidir. Fakat bir an gelir ki, sadece eski arzular uğruna dökülen yeni yaşlarımız vardır. Binlerce kez değiştiğimizi sanıp bazı duygu patikalarında 1 milim bile yol alamamışızdır:
"Eski arzular uğruna dökülen yeni yaşlar
Gösteriyor nasıl ben hala o eski benim,
Binlerce değişimle bile değişmemişim." (s. 182)
Petrarca ölen aşkı Laura'sına ulaşmak için Tanrısal bir hedef gösteriyor kendine, Dante'nin İlahi Komedya'sında yaptığı gibi. Ben de insanın yolunu bir çembere benzetirim. Başlangıç yolunda çembersel bir yol alan insan, sürekli zevki ve uğruna adanması gereken hedefleri başka insanlarda bulmaya çalışıyor, oysaki bir çember gibi tekrar gerisingeri kendine ve hatta içindeki Tanrı arayışına dönüyor en başta olduğu gibi. Çünkü O'nun haricinde herkesin bir hayal kırıklığından ibaret olduğunu anlıyor. Yunan mitolojisinin büyük yazarı Hesiodos, İşler ve Günler kitabında demiş ya:
"Sende olanla yetindin mi işin yolundadır,
Sende olmayanı özlemeye başladın mı için için,
İşte o felaket: İyi düşün bunun üstüne!" (s. 62)
Hah, işte aynen böyle. Zaten Proust da Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisinde bunu anlatıyordu. Bizde olanla yetinmeyip, bizde olmayanı özlediğimiz zaman elimizde kalan şeyler hayal kırıklığı, acı, aşk acısı, özlemler ve yarım kalmışlıklar oluyor. Ama bunların da bir bilinç seviyesine ulaşmak için gerekli olan şeyler olduğunu unutmayalım. Proust, bir arabayla ilgilenmemiz için o arabanın bozulması gerektiğini, bir vücutla ilgilenmemiz gerektiğini hatırlamamız için de o insanın hasta olması gerektiğini söyler bize.
Dante, Petrarca, Şükrü Erbaş ve Marcel Proust gibi isimler, kadınlarının fiziksel ölümleriyle zihinsel olarak ölümünü gerçekleştirmiş birkaç isim. Ölmeden doğman gerektiğini anlayamazsın. Malum, insanlar uyurlar ölünce uyanırlar. Bu adamların da uyanışı edebiyat ile olmuş. Canzoniere'yi bu incelemeyi okuyan ve şiir türüne ısınmak isteyen her arkadaşa tavsiye edebileceğim 110/10 puanlık bir şiir kitabı olarak görüyorum.
Bu kitabın incelemesini yazıyor olmak çok farklı bir duygu. Çünkü ne kadar kıyıda köşede kalmış ama içinde muhteşem cevherler bulunan bir kitaptır bu! Bu incelemeyle birlikte Canzoniere kitabının okunma ya da okunacak listesine alınma sayısını birkaç kişi bile artırsam kafi.
Dante Alighieri'nin Yeni Hayat kitabında anlattığı ve karşılıksız olarak sonsuzca sevdiği kadını Beatrice için dediği bir cümle var :
"Bugüne kadar hiçbir kadın hakkında yazılmamış şeyleri, sevdiğim kadın için yazmayı niyet ediyorum."
Sanırım ki, Dante Yeni Hayat kitabında Beatrice'i, Şükrü Erbaş Yaşıyoruz Sessizce kitabında Hatice Erbaş'ı, Marcel Proust ise Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisinde Albertine'i betimleyebilmek için aynı uğraş içerisine giriyor. İşte, aynı şeyleri Petrarca'nın Laura'sı için söyleyebiliriz. Yukarıdaki yazarlar nasıl öldükten sonra ardında yarım kalmış bir erkek kalbi bırakan yalnızlaşmış ve o kadının hayalet imgesini ölüler diyarında düşünüp de karşısında yaşıyormuşcasına kabullenmemeye alışmak isteyen yazarlarsa, Petrarca için de aynı şeyleri söylemem gerek.
"Günde bin kez ölür, bin kez doğarım,
O kadar uzağım kurtuluşumdan." (s. 235)
Mesela Petrarca, bin kez ölüp bin kez doğduğunu hissediyormuş. İnsanın kurtuluşundan uzak olduğunu söylemesi bir dizede bu kadar mı güzel anlatılır arkadaş? İtalya, Rönesans dönemine girmeden önce gerçekten çok değerli yazarlara ev sahipliği yapmış bir ülke. Şairlerin şairi Vergilius önderliğinde Ovidius, Dante, Horatius, Petrarca gibi isimler ne kadar da bizim tarafımızdan tanınmayı bekleyen cevherlerdir!
Sevgilisi Laura öldüğü için onun ölümünü kabullenemeyip yaşıyormuşcasına bir hayat yaşamak isteyen Petrarca, öyle ki bazen Şükrü Erbaş'ın Yaşıyoruz Sessizce kitabının 77. sayfasındaki gibi bir ruh haline bürünüyor: "Öyle bir acı ki bu, ölen yaşayanda her gün yeniden ölüyor, yaşayan ağlamadan kimseyi sevemiyor." Ölenin yaşayanda her gün yeniden öldüğü, Petrarca'yı binlerce kez öldürüp binlerce kez doğuran, gözyaşı şelaleleriyle Styx nehrinin unutkanlık mitine akmak isteyen bir adamın, ne kadar uzaklaşmak isterse o kadar yakınlaştığı, ne kadar yakınlaşmak isterse de o kadar uzaklaştığı bir kitabıdır Canzoniere.
Bazen eski arzularımızı unuttuğumuzu düşünürüz, yeni arzular bizim için çok çekicidir. Fakat bir an gelir ki, sadece eski arzular uğruna dökülen yeni yaşlarımız vardır. Binlerce kez değiştiğimizi sanıp bazı duygu patikalarında 1 milim bile yol alamamışızdır:
"Eski arzular uğruna dökülen yeni yaşlar
Gösteriyor nasıl ben hala o eski benim,
Binlerce değişimle bile değişmemişim." (s. 182)
Petrarca ölen aşkı Laura'sına ulaşmak için Tanrısal bir hedef gösteriyor kendine, Dante'nin İlahi Komedya'sında yaptığı gibi. Ben de insanın yolunu bir çembere benzetirim. Başlangıç yolunda çembersel bir yol alan insan, sürekli zevki ve uğruna adanması gereken hedefleri başka insanlarda bulmaya çalışıyor, oysaki bir çember gibi tekrar gerisingeri kendine ve hatta içindeki Tanrı arayışına dönüyor en başta olduğu gibi. Çünkü O'nun haricinde herkesin bir hayal kırıklığından ibaret olduğunu anlıyor. Yunan mitolojisinin büyük yazarı Hesiodos, İşler ve Günler kitabında demiş ya:
"Sende olanla yetindin mi işin yolundadır,
Sende olmayanı özlemeye başladın mı için için,
İşte o felaket: İyi düşün bunun üstüne!" (s. 62)
Hah, işte aynen böyle. Zaten Proust da Kayıp Zamanın İzinde serisinde bunu anlatıyordu. Bizde olanla yetinmeyip, bizde olmayanı özlediğimiz zaman elimizde kalan şeyler hayal kırıklığı, acı, aşk acısı, özlemler ve yarım kalmışlıklar oluyor. Ama bunların da bir bilinç seviyesine ulaşmak için gerekli olan şeyler olduğunu unutmayalım. Proust, bir arabayla ilgilenmemiz için o arabanın bozulması gerektiğini, bir vücutla ilgilenmemiz gerektiğini hatırlamamız için de o insanın hasta olması gerektiğini söyler bize.
Dante, Petrarca, Şükrü Erbaş ve Marcel Proust gibi isimler, kadınlarının fiziksel ölümleriyle zihinsel olarak ölümünü gerçekleştirmiş birkaç isim. Ölmeden doğman gerektiğini anlayamazsın. Malum, insanlar uyurlar ölünce uyanırlar. Bu adamların da uyanışı edebiyat ile olmuş. Canzoniere'yi bu incelemeyi okuyan ve şiir türüne ısınmak isteyen her arkadaşa tavsiye edebileceğim 110/10 puanlık bir şiir kitabı olarak görüyorum.
March 25, 2018
True love—or rather, the truest—is always obsessive and unrequited. No one has better dramatized how it scorches the heart and fires the imagination than Petrarch did, centuries ago. —J. D. McClatchy
_____
In 1327, at precisely
the day's first hour, April 6, I entered
this labyrinth, and I've found no escape. (211)
. . . if other lovers have a better fortune,
their thousand joys aren't worth one pain of mine. (231)
__________
This volume comprises Petrarch's complete Il Canzoniere or Song Book; composed over 40 years and containing 366 poems, of which, most are in Sonnet form.
The poems themselves are relatively easy to read; in contrast to his contemporary, Dante, and the latter's extremely dense allegory and symbolism, Petrarch's poetry is a little more worldly and "light", with any obscure symbolism and metaphors, as well as textual context, being helpfully explained with minimal notes in the margins.
As would be expected with a collection of this size, the quality is not consistent, but there is definitely some great poetry contained within, and the whole certainly grows to become more than the sum of its parts.
Of course, Petrarch's poetry had a deep and wide-ranging influence on future poets,
. . . it is worth stating here, boldly and emphatically, that what we love in the sonnets of Shakespeare and Sidney and Spenser, among others, is in large part a reflection of their having absorbed and continued Petrarch's powerful example.
and so his poems are also highly interesting to read in this context.
Petrarch is also widely acknowledged as the first Humanist, and for helping to initiate the Italian Renaissance with his personal discovery of Cicero's Letters to Atticus.
David Young's translation reads as very modern and fresh, which, for me, took a little getting used to; but the translation never oversteps, and is always faithful to the original. Highly recommended.
__________
"As her white foot moves forward through cool grass,
her sweet and quiet walking starts to spread
a power, emanating from her soles,
that acts to open and renew the flowers." (165)
". . . flawless ivory and fresh roses" (199)
"Her lovely paleness . . . it stirred my heart . . ." (123)
". . . her lovely eyes and gorgeous hair" (198)
"I mean that hair of hers, the curled blond snare
that softly ties my soul and binds it tight . . ." (197)
"Her golden hair braided with gems and pearls,
or loosened, and more blond than burnished gold,
—
which she shook so sweetly and then gathered
with such a charming gesture that my mind
still trembles when I think of it again." (196)
". . . those curling locks of purest shining gold" (292)
"Her glances made flowers bloom . . ." (325)
"The fruit of age within the flower of youth . . ." (215)
"I feed my mind upon a food so noble
I don't need Jove's ambrosia or nectar." (193)
__________
"You therefore, if you ever hope to have
a peaceful mind before your final day,
must emulate the few and not the mob." (99)
". . . a thousand things have changed, but I have not." (118)
"And if I have ever strayed from the true path
it pains me more than I can ever show." (119)
October 5, 2016
коли лаура помирає, петрарка й не думає припиняти писати їй вірші. зрештою, якщо зважити на те, що після смерті вона якась навіть прихильніша до нього, ніж за життя (дбає про нього з небес, приходить як видиво в кімнату тощо), це й зрозуміло: ідеальна жінка набула остаточної досконалості, а поетичний потенціал тої трансцендентної прірви, що пролягла між нею й поетом, значно більший, ніж у розлук земних. петрарка переконаний, що в раю вона з радістю прийме того, хто так її любив, і, звісно, нікого не цікавить, що з цього приводу могла б подумати сама лаура. по-справжньому про неї в цих віршах – хіба дата смерті.
September 21, 2022
The Canzoniere is not all about Petrarch's love for Laura; in fact, she always appears as fragments of the imagination. Who she is, is unimportant as we can gather that Petarch's symbols always point back to the self--this is what makes him so different from Dante and also so modern for the 1300s. I interpret this work of poetry as a manifestation of the crisis of the self, of inner tensions between the sacred and profane life. To read the entire Canzoniere is to suffer poetically as Petrarch did.
September 23, 2025
[...] "di me medesmo meco mi vergogno;
et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è l frutto,
e l pentersi, e l conoscer chiaramente
che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno."
[...] ashamed of myself for myself, and shame is the fruit of my delusion, and so is repenting, and the clear recognition that the world's pleasure is a brief dream.
et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è l frutto,
e l pentersi, e l conoscer chiaramente
che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno."
[...] ashamed of myself for myself, and shame is the fruit of my delusion, and so is repenting, and the clear recognition that the world's pleasure is a brief dream.
January 1, 2026
366 poemes, 1 poema x dia (casi) (i idea del meu exprofe de lite fantàstic (molt més que l'assignatura)). tot el 2025 amb petrarca a la tauleta, es podria dir que les seves obessions i vaivens emocionals ara són part de mi.
(i! edició bilingüe xulíssima, que boig q és traduir poesia)
(i! edició bilingüe xulíssima, que boig q és traduir poesia)
April 6, 2025
rip laura. top poeta incastrato nell'amore (si perdoni la brutale semplificazione).
June 25, 2017
Debo haber leído la peor edición en el continente (no la de Alianza). Y sin embargo... acá pasaron cosas.
CXXXIV
Paz no encuentro, y no tengo armas de guerra;
temo y espero; ardiendo, estoy helado;
vuelo hasta el cielo, pero yazgo en tierra;
no estrecho nada, al mundo así abrazado.
Quien me aprisiona no me abre ni cierra,
por suyo no me da, ni me ha soltado;
y no me mata Amor ni me deshierra,
ni quiere verme vivo ni acabado.
Sin lengua ni ojos veo y voy gritando;
auxilio pido, y en morir me empeño;
me odio a mí mismo, y alguien me enamora.
Me nutro de dolor, río llorando;
muerte y vida de igual modo desdeño:
en este estado me tenéis, señora.
CCXII
Feliz en sueños, de penar contento,
de abrazar sombras e ir tras la aura estiva,
en mar sin fondo o playa, aro agua viva,
edificio en arena, escribo en viento;
y al sol sigo mirando, aunque bien siento
que ya ha apagado mi virtud visiva;
y a una cierva errabunda y fugitiva
cazo con un buey cojo, enfermo y lento.
Noche y día buscando voy mi daño,
que para el resto estoy ciego y cansado;
sólo a Amor, a ella y a la Muerte anhelo.
Afanándome veinte, año tras año,
lágrimas y suspiros he mercado:
en tal astro piqué cebo y anzuelo.
CCCXXXII
Mi benigna fortuna y vivir ledo
los claros días y tranquilas noches,
el suave suspirar y el dulce trazo
con que ayer componía verso y rimas,
vueltos de improviso en pena y llanto,
me hacen odiar la vida e ir tras la muerte.
Cruel, acerba, inexorable muerte,
razón me das de nunca más ser ledo,
mas de arrastrar toda mi vida en llanto,
y en días tristes y dolientes noches;
mi vano suspirar no cabe en rimas
y mi martirio vence todo trazo.
¿Dónde se ha huido mi amoroso trazo?
A hablar de ira y a tratar de muerte.
¿Qué se hicieron los versos y las rimas,
que un noble pecho oía absorto y ledo?
¿Dónde el fabular de amor las noches?
Hoy no hablo ya, ni pienso más que en llanto.
Me fue mientras vivió tan dulce el llanto,
que de dulzura henchía amargo trazo,
haciéndome velar todas las noches;
amargo el llanto es más hoy que la muerte,
pues no espero ya más su gesto ledo,
alto sujeto de mis bajas rimas (...)
January 29, 2018
"If I can love with such a glowing faith
a bit of mortal and corrupted dust,
how greatly will I love a noble thing?"
I don't often reread books – there are too many of them for that – but since graduating college, I've been more inclined to return to those that were deeply significant in my younger years (God, what a pretentious turn of phrase). Any of my high school classmates can attest, probably with laughter, that the Canzoniere was hugely impactful for me, and it was extremely rewarding to reread it now – or, really, read it for the first time in its entirety, as we only read a fraction of it then. Going through it slowly over the last few months illuminated just how deeply its influence runs in my thought (and writing), revealing ways I've changed over the years and ways I've stayed the same – which is only fitting, considering the text's nature as a delicate account of the way desires persist and evolve through the passage of time. My appreciation of Petrarch has changed now that I'm older, but it hasn't lessened; it's only deepened.
a bit of mortal and corrupted dust,
how greatly will I love a noble thing?"
I don't often reread books – there are too many of them for that – but since graduating college, I've been more inclined to return to those that were deeply significant in my younger years (God, what a pretentious turn of phrase). Any of my high school classmates can attest, probably with laughter, that the Canzoniere was hugely impactful for me, and it was extremely rewarding to reread it now – or, really, read it for the first time in its entirety, as we only read a fraction of it then. Going through it slowly over the last few months illuminated just how deeply its influence runs in my thought (and writing), revealing ways I've changed over the years and ways I've stayed the same – which is only fitting, considering the text's nature as a delicate account of the way desires persist and evolve through the passage of time. My appreciation of Petrarch has changed now that I'm older, but it hasn't lessened; it's only deepened.
May 21, 2023
"Quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno."
January 28, 2025
I frammenti dell’anima
«Mi dedicherò a me stesso quando più potrò, raccoglierò gli sparsi frammenti della mia anima e dimorerò in me, con attenzione» afferma Petrarca in conclusione del Secretum ed è ciò che fa nel Canzoniere, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 366 testi poetici scritti dalla giovinezza alla vecchiaia e progressivamente limati e rivisti nel tempo. Il titolo originale della raccolta, in latino, allude in primo luogo al carattere frammentario del racconto poetico di Petrarca, che riflette la frammentarietà autentica dell’esistenza umana a cui il Canzoniere cerca di dare un senso complessivo: ogni testo ha la sua autonomia, sebbene, una volta accostato agli altri e collocato al suo posto, sveli un preciso disegno unitario, una fitta trama di nessi tematici che tiene insieme i “frammenti” dell’anima e della poesia dell’autore. In secondo luogo quel “frammenti” allude al tema centrale della produzione petrarchesca: la ricostruzione della personalità del poeta, lacerata da spinte contrastanti. Il Canzoniere è l’espressione formale di una condizione umana e al tempo stesso il tentativo di superarla e risolverla. Ma qual è la causa della lacerazione interiore del poeta?
Il Canzoniere è il racconto dell’amore per Laura, affiancato da altri temi altrettanto importanti. Quasi una sorta di diario, infatti i componimenti hanno una disposizione cronologica oltre che tematica e secondo la tradizione l’opera si divide esattamente a metà tra le rime in vita e le rime in morte di Laura. Non bisogna però pensare che si tratti di una trascrizione fedele degli eventi: i dati biografici sono filtrati e organizzati in una struttura dal disegno preciso, allo scopo di ricostruire un itinerario morale a partire dal «giovenile errore» del poeta, appunto l’innamoramento per una donna bellissima che lo disdegna. Da tale errore egli vuole prendere le distanze e dopo la morte di Laura lo spazio poetico è tutto per il pentimento, la conversione, il distacco dai futili valori terreni che lo hanno allontanato da Dio. L’innamoramento, infatti, avviene in un giorno ben preciso: il 6 aprile, giorno della Passione di Cristo, che incarna quindi la caduta e la colpa di tutta l’umanità, così come quella di Petrarca. Il primo testo della seconda metà del Canzoniere, invece, (la metà “in morte” di Laura) si colloca il 25 dicembre: il ravvedimento dell’autore, quindi, ha inizio nel giorno in cui l’arrivo di Cristo sulla Terra promette la salvezza dell’umanità, così come Petrarca cerca salvezza dalla deviazione giovanile. L’ultimo testo del Canzoniere è una canzone alla Vergine, alla quale il poeta dedica l’intera opera e chiede intercessione presso Dio affinché gli conceda il perdono.
Laura non può amare il poeta, perché è innamorata di sé stessa. È spesso lontana, fisicamente assente, e questa sua distanza riflette una distanza emotiva. Il loro rapporto vive nel ricordo, più reale e concreto del presente. Indifferente e chiusa in sé stessa, Laura è appagata dalla propria bellezza e non desidera altro. I «micidiali specchi» sono il vero nemico di Petrarca e del suo amore. Anche il poeta, però, appare chiuso in sé stesso, non diversamente da Laura. Nonostante le splendide parole che sa mettere su carta, con lei è incapace di comunicare. Le due metà di questa coppia mancata hanno una evidente difficoltà a relazionarsi tra loro. Un tema modernissimo, basta pensare che Sally Rooney ha fatto delle difficoltà comunicative nei rapporti umani la base dei suoi romanzi.
Laura, inoltre, è una figura straordinariamente concreta e viva: la sua esistenza è scandita da tappe biografiche precise, Laura si ammala, invecchia, muore e i suoi tratti fisici sono molto più evidenziati rispetto alla tradizione poetica precedente (gli occhi, i capelli, il modo di camminare). È emblema della bellezza e insieme della fragilità delle cose terrene e svela l’incertezza dell’intera condizione umana, destinata a logorarsi e a morire.
La novità del Canzoniere, però, non è questa. Sta nell’inedita complessità psicologica del soggetto che dice io, una personalità frantumata e lacerata da conflitti e contraddizioni, divisa tra l’amore terreno da una parte e l’amore per Dio dall’altra, e che confessa il proprio tormento. L’amore per una donna è quasi solo un pretesto per dare voce alle spaccature interiori dell’anima, alle angosce che qualsiasi uomo prova, in qualsiasi tempo e luogo. L’io del Canzoniere è così ingombrante da proiettarsi nel paesaggio circostante, in cui si identifica quando la natura rispecchia i suoi stati d’animo o all’opposto non si riconosce. Questo rapporto tra soggetto e paesaggio attraverserà tutta la lirica europea occidentale, fino al Decadentismo. L’aspetto più innovativo e interessante dell’opera, però, quello che ancora oggi la rende viva e carica di significato per noi, è la scoperta della coscienza, nell’infinità di frammenti che la compongono, e la sua rappresentazione.
«Mi dedicherò a me stesso quando più potrò, raccoglierò gli sparsi frammenti della mia anima e dimorerò in me, con attenzione» afferma Petrarca in conclusione del Secretum ed è ciò che fa nel Canzoniere, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 366 testi poetici scritti dalla giovinezza alla vecchiaia e progressivamente limati e rivisti nel tempo. Il titolo originale della raccolta, in latino, allude in primo luogo al carattere frammentario del racconto poetico di Petrarca, che riflette la frammentarietà autentica dell’esistenza umana a cui il Canzoniere cerca di dare un senso complessivo: ogni testo ha la sua autonomia, sebbene, una volta accostato agli altri e collocato al suo posto, sveli un preciso disegno unitario, una fitta trama di nessi tematici che tiene insieme i “frammenti” dell’anima e della poesia dell’autore. In secondo luogo quel “frammenti” allude al tema centrale della produzione petrarchesca: la ricostruzione della personalità del poeta, lacerata da spinte contrastanti. Il Canzoniere è l’espressione formale di una condizione umana e al tempo stesso il tentativo di superarla e risolverla. Ma qual è la causa della lacerazione interiore del poeta?
Il Canzoniere è il racconto dell’amore per Laura, affiancato da altri temi altrettanto importanti. Quasi una sorta di diario, infatti i componimenti hanno una disposizione cronologica oltre che tematica e secondo la tradizione l’opera si divide esattamente a metà tra le rime in vita e le rime in morte di Laura. Non bisogna però pensare che si tratti di una trascrizione fedele degli eventi: i dati biografici sono filtrati e organizzati in una struttura dal disegno preciso, allo scopo di ricostruire un itinerario morale a partire dal «giovenile errore» del poeta, appunto l’innamoramento per una donna bellissima che lo disdegna. Da tale errore egli vuole prendere le distanze e dopo la morte di Laura lo spazio poetico è tutto per il pentimento, la conversione, il distacco dai futili valori terreni che lo hanno allontanato da Dio. L’innamoramento, infatti, avviene in un giorno ben preciso: il 6 aprile, giorno della Passione di Cristo, che incarna quindi la caduta e la colpa di tutta l’umanità, così come quella di Petrarca. Il primo testo della seconda metà del Canzoniere, invece, (la metà “in morte” di Laura) si colloca il 25 dicembre: il ravvedimento dell’autore, quindi, ha inizio nel giorno in cui l’arrivo di Cristo sulla Terra promette la salvezza dell’umanità, così come Petrarca cerca salvezza dalla deviazione giovanile. L’ultimo testo del Canzoniere è una canzone alla Vergine, alla quale il poeta dedica l’intera opera e chiede intercessione presso Dio affinché gli conceda il perdono.
Laura non può amare il poeta, perché è innamorata di sé stessa. È spesso lontana, fisicamente assente, e questa sua distanza riflette una distanza emotiva. Il loro rapporto vive nel ricordo, più reale e concreto del presente. Indifferente e chiusa in sé stessa, Laura è appagata dalla propria bellezza e non desidera altro. I «micidiali specchi» sono il vero nemico di Petrarca e del suo amore. Anche il poeta, però, appare chiuso in sé stesso, non diversamente da Laura. Nonostante le splendide parole che sa mettere su carta, con lei è incapace di comunicare. Le due metà di questa coppia mancata hanno una evidente difficoltà a relazionarsi tra loro. Un tema modernissimo, basta pensare che Sally Rooney ha fatto delle difficoltà comunicative nei rapporti umani la base dei suoi romanzi.
Laura, inoltre, è una figura straordinariamente concreta e viva: la sua esistenza è scandita da tappe biografiche precise, Laura si ammala, invecchia, muore e i suoi tratti fisici sono molto più evidenziati rispetto alla tradizione poetica precedente (gli occhi, i capelli, il modo di camminare). È emblema della bellezza e insieme della fragilità delle cose terrene e svela l’incertezza dell’intera condizione umana, destinata a logorarsi e a morire.
La novità del Canzoniere, però, non è questa. Sta nell’inedita complessità psicologica del soggetto che dice io, una personalità frantumata e lacerata da conflitti e contraddizioni, divisa tra l’amore terreno da una parte e l’amore per Dio dall’altra, e che confessa il proprio tormento. L’amore per una donna è quasi solo un pretesto per dare voce alle spaccature interiori dell’anima, alle angosce che qualsiasi uomo prova, in qualsiasi tempo e luogo. L’io del Canzoniere è così ingombrante da proiettarsi nel paesaggio circostante, in cui si identifica quando la natura rispecchia i suoi stati d’animo o all’opposto non si riconosce. Questo rapporto tra soggetto e paesaggio attraverserà tutta la lirica europea occidentale, fino al Decadentismo. L’aspetto più innovativo e interessante dell’opera, però, quello che ancora oggi la rende viva e carica di significato per noi, è la scoperta della coscienza, nell’infinità di frammenti che la compongono, e la sua rappresentazione.
September 12, 2025
Dante clears
Note to self: Buy the selected works editions of any future poetry books. I was not expecting this to be nearly 700 pages long. It also has a creepy painting of a lady as the cover which I would usually enjoy, but not this time.
3.5/5 but more of a 3 than a 4.
Note to self: Buy the selected works editions of any future poetry books. I was not expecting this to be nearly 700 pages long. It also has a creepy painting of a lady as the cover which I would usually enjoy, but not this time.
3.5/5 but more of a 3 than a 4.
December 12, 2024
Pausieren wir mal das Frauenbild und schauen nur auf die Kunst…..
July 28, 2024
Petrarch combines his experience of love with reflections on life and change, time and loss, virtue and emotion, art and creation, and, of course, God.
November 28, 2023
The Canzoniere remains Petrarch's most celebrated work.
Famous for being a collection of love poems, the great bulk of it is dedicated to singing the praises of a woman called Laura. Who was she? We don't know. We assume she was Laura de Noves, a French noblewoman Petrarch claimed he had met in a church in France (Avignon) but, who rejected his advances as she was married to someone else. Well, so far so good. It's all very platonic, courtly, gallant, chevaleresque, and, so, nothing unusual or so it seems for the time. The thing with Petrarch, though, is that love is not sweet. It's not all flowers and butterflies and gazing at the sky dabbling with a mandoline while listening to singing birds. Love, for him, was indeed torture.
First of all, he was a Christian, deeply religious, who valued mysticism. To be so attracted by a woman, possessed with passion, love and lust as he was for a woman (let alone one he first had a glimpse at in a church!) was, if not sinful, at least unworthy of his ideal of a man of god. Then, of course, if he could feel happy thinking and writing about her (after all, here was a crush and so he wasn't spared the elated feelings coming with it all) it was nevertheless an unrequited love, as Laura rejected him. Perfectly knowing that, you can then sense his anguish and agony over his feelings over her. As a result, what a whirlwind of emotions the Canzoniere is! The turmoil tore him apart, and it makes for a very peculiar collection.
More, this book can also be hailed as a cultural turning point -for its impact on Italian language, and for kickstarting a fashion for sonnet writing.
Indeed, being a poet of the Renaissance Petrarch wrote this Canzoniere not in Latin (as would have been expected) but in Italian, his native language. Doing so, he would contribute (with Boccaccio, Dante...) to shape Italian language as we know it, showing it could be as complex, intricate, and creative as the language of the Ancients. Out of the 366 poems it contains, a remarkable 317 alone are also sonnets; sonnets of a particular form that will come to bear his name. The form will, we know, completely take Europe by storm; influencing from Ronsard in France to Sir Thomas Wyatt and, later, Shakespeare in England.
So there you go: emerging sonnets at the service of beautiful (even if quite masochistic) love poems, by a Renaissance man to whom his native language, Italian, owes a great deal... Here's a splendid work definitely worth knowing!
Famous for being a collection of love poems, the great bulk of it is dedicated to singing the praises of a woman called Laura. Who was she? We don't know. We assume she was Laura de Noves, a French noblewoman Petrarch claimed he had met in a church in France (Avignon) but, who rejected his advances as she was married to someone else. Well, so far so good. It's all very platonic, courtly, gallant, chevaleresque, and, so, nothing unusual or so it seems for the time. The thing with Petrarch, though, is that love is not sweet. It's not all flowers and butterflies and gazing at the sky dabbling with a mandoline while listening to singing birds. Love, for him, was indeed torture.
First of all, he was a Christian, deeply religious, who valued mysticism. To be so attracted by a woman, possessed with passion, love and lust as he was for a woman (let alone one he first had a glimpse at in a church!) was, if not sinful, at least unworthy of his ideal of a man of god. Then, of course, if he could feel happy thinking and writing about her (after all, here was a crush and so he wasn't spared the elated feelings coming with it all) it was nevertheless an unrequited love, as Laura rejected him. Perfectly knowing that, you can then sense his anguish and agony over his feelings over her. As a result, what a whirlwind of emotions the Canzoniere is! The turmoil tore him apart, and it makes for a very peculiar collection.
More, this book can also be hailed as a cultural turning point -for its impact on Italian language, and for kickstarting a fashion for sonnet writing.
Indeed, being a poet of the Renaissance Petrarch wrote this Canzoniere not in Latin (as would have been expected) but in Italian, his native language. Doing so, he would contribute (with Boccaccio, Dante...) to shape Italian language as we know it, showing it could be as complex, intricate, and creative as the language of the Ancients. Out of the 366 poems it contains, a remarkable 317 alone are also sonnets; sonnets of a particular form that will come to bear his name. The form will, we know, completely take Europe by storm; influencing from Ronsard in France to Sir Thomas Wyatt and, later, Shakespeare in England.
So there you go: emerging sonnets at the service of beautiful (even if quite masochistic) love poems, by a Renaissance man to whom his native language, Italian, owes a great deal... Here's a splendid work definitely worth knowing!
September 21, 2017
TITOLO: "Me Medesmo Meco. E poi?"
Dopo la lettura di Andrea Scanzi, ho deciso di passare all'opera di un altro autore che, sebbene qualche secolo prima, trova i suoi natali nella città d'Arezzo.
Non è famoso quanto Andrea, il Petrarca, ma poco ci manca. Di certo, noi che ascoltiamo in rime sparse il suono sappiamo tutto del suo poetare, del suo splendido camminare nella valle verde dell'endecasillabo: e che sia sciolto o meno, poco importa, ecco.
Sappiamo tutto della perfezione del sonetto, della canzone petrarchesca, così come conosciamo i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi; nonché il mai troppo celato feticismo del Nostro: eh, se i guanti di Laura avessero potuto parlare! Immagino avrebbero detto una cosa del genere: "pe' falla divertire / s'andiede da i'Raspanti / la si scaccolò co' guanti / e la mi fece scomparì", tanto per citare un altro grande poeta toscano, che meriterebbe almeno un posto accanto alle Tre Corone.
È forse chiedere troppo?
Forse.
Ad ogni modo, inutile dire quanto le poesie di Francesco siano meravigliose: ormai quello l'hanno detto pure i sassi. Se scrivo qui è per provare a muovergli almeno una critica, e questa riguarda il suo debordante e spregiudicato egotismo, come a dire "guardate quanto sto male, leggere quanto patisco, ecc"; che va benissimo, per carità: ma trecentosessantasei componimenti su di te e questa poverella che non ha mai voce in capitolo, a me sono sembrati più che altro un bellissimo - e ripeto: bellissimo - punta spilli scrotale.
E questo lo dico col massimo rispetto per i petrarchisti, dinanzi ai quali m'inchino reiterate volte.
Ma non m'inginocchio al cospetto del Canzoniere, bensì di fronte alla incompresa genialità del Secretum, che un giorno verrà senza dubbio rivalutato come la maggiore e unica opera davvero degna di nota del Petrarca da Arezzo.
Dopo la lettura di Andrea Scanzi, ho deciso di passare all'opera di un altro autore che, sebbene qualche secolo prima, trova i suoi natali nella città d'Arezzo.
Non è famoso quanto Andrea, il Petrarca, ma poco ci manca. Di certo, noi che ascoltiamo in rime sparse il suono sappiamo tutto del suo poetare, del suo splendido camminare nella valle verde dell'endecasillabo: e che sia sciolto o meno, poco importa, ecco.
Sappiamo tutto della perfezione del sonetto, della canzone petrarchesca, così come conosciamo i capei d'oro a l'aura sparsi; nonché il mai troppo celato feticismo del Nostro: eh, se i guanti di Laura avessero potuto parlare! Immagino avrebbero detto una cosa del genere: "pe' falla divertire / s'andiede da i'Raspanti / la si scaccolò co' guanti / e la mi fece scomparì", tanto per citare un altro grande poeta toscano, che meriterebbe almeno un posto accanto alle Tre Corone.
È forse chiedere troppo?
Forse.
Ad ogni modo, inutile dire quanto le poesie di Francesco siano meravigliose: ormai quello l'hanno detto pure i sassi. Se scrivo qui è per provare a muovergli almeno una critica, e questa riguarda il suo debordante e spregiudicato egotismo, come a dire "guardate quanto sto male, leggere quanto patisco, ecc"; che va benissimo, per carità: ma trecentosessantasei componimenti su di te e questa poverella che non ha mai voce in capitolo, a me sono sembrati più che altro un bellissimo - e ripeto: bellissimo - punta spilli scrotale.
E questo lo dico col massimo rispetto per i petrarchisti, dinanzi ai quali m'inchino reiterate volte.
Ma non m'inginocchio al cospetto del Canzoniere, bensì di fronte alla incompresa genialità del Secretum, che un giorno verrà senza dubbio rivalutato come la maggiore e unica opera davvero degna di nota del Petrarca da Arezzo.
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August 26, 2017This is a good translation, and the original Italian is easily available free, so they can be read together, which you'll want to do because a lot of Petrarch's cleverness here is with language. There's no point reading "The gentle breeze, the golden curls, the laurel tree" without realising it says "L'aura, l'aureo, lauro" or "Laura Laura Laura", though since most of these sonnets say "Laura Laura Laura" you could probably figure it out. Oh that's unfair, but I like Petrarch best when he is not talking about love all the time. I enjoyed reading these anyway. I'd recommend his letters and dialogues more but there's a level of technical virtuosity in which these are stunning, and were stunning to his contemporaries. He was reaching for something nobody had even tried to reach for for centuries.
February 22, 2022
Öncelikle okuduğum şiir kitaplarının sayısının bir elin parmaklarını geçmediğini söylemem doğru olur. Ancak güzel şiir her durumda kendisini belli ediyor. Dante, Petrarca, Shakespeare, Hafız Şirazi, Goethe, Rimbaud gibi büyük şairlerin şiirleri, insanda farklı duygular uyandırıyor, yaratıcılığını geliştiriyor ve hayata daha farklı pencereden bakmasını sağlıyor.
Şiirleri okurken keşke İtalyanca aslını da vermiş olsalardı diye düşündüm. Şiir çevirisi, diğer edebi türlerin aksine daha hassas olan bir alan. Öte yandan çevirmen, başarılı bir iş çıkarmış. Benim gibi şiirle aranız pek iyi olmasa da mutlaka okumanızı önerebileceğim duygu dolu şiirler.
Şiirleri okurken keşke İtalyanca aslını da vermiş olsalardı diye düşündüm. Şiir çevirisi, diğer edebi türlerin aksine daha hassas olan bir alan. Öte yandan çevirmen, başarılı bir iş çıkarmış. Benim gibi şiirle aranız pek iyi olmasa da mutlaka okumanızı önerebileceğim duygu dolu şiirler.
September 27, 2012
Left me completely breathless! I'm not a huge fan of poetry nor do I enjoy love themes, but the way Petrarch portrays his love towards Laura is simply heartbreaking! Everyone has at least once felt in the same position as him and I don't know about anyone else but I just felt like his heart was singing the same familiar song through his sonnets...
June 1, 2016
una delle raccolte più intense della mia vita. piacerebbe anche a me trovare la mia Laura. Ancora ci spero. Una poesia al giorno, per 366 giorni. È stata un'esperienza davvero intensa. L'ho anche trovatoin streaming gratuito su questo sito: Canzoniere
November 18, 2022
"¿Por qué temes?, habló al pecho mi mente.
Mas no entró antes en él mi pensamiento
que los rayos en que ardo fatalmente.
Como con el fulgor truena al momento,
a la vez me alcanzaron la luciente
mirada y de un saludo el dulce acento".
Nota mental: si en vez de gastar horas lamentándote por un amor no correspondido las inviertes en escribir, quizás crees un nuevo género como hizo Petrarca con el soneto. Canalizar la obsesión a través del talento.
"Y, al ir tras ella por las hierbas verdes,
oí una voz decir, alta y distante:
«¡Ay, cuántos pasos por la selva pierdes!».
Pensativo, gané el refugio umbroso
de un haya, y miré en torno: y comprendía
que era aquel viaje mío peligroso;
y atrás volví, casi a mitad del día".
Mas no entró antes en él mi pensamiento
que los rayos en que ardo fatalmente.
Como con el fulgor truena al momento,
a la vez me alcanzaron la luciente
mirada y de un saludo el dulce acento".
Nota mental: si en vez de gastar horas lamentándote por un amor no correspondido las inviertes en escribir, quizás crees un nuevo género como hizo Petrarca con el soneto. Canalizar la obsesión a través del talento.
"Y, al ir tras ella por las hierbas verdes,
oí una voz decir, alta y distante:
«¡Ay, cuántos pasos por la selva pierdes!».
Pensativo, gané el refugio umbroso
de un haya, y miré en torno: y comprendía
que era aquel viaje mío peligroso;
y atrás volví, casi a mitad del día".
June 21, 2023
Ho studiato e letto alcune liriche per l'università, quindi lo metto tra le mie letture, dal momento che è stato anche bello impegnativo. Liriche: I, III, V, VII, VIII, XV, XVII, XXI, XXIII, XXX, XXXV, XXXVII, XLVI, L, LIII, LXX, LXXI, LXXXV, XC, CVII, CXVI, CXXVI, CXXVIII, CXXIX, CLXIV, CLXXV, CCXXXIV, CCXXXIX, CCLVIII, CCLXIV, CCCXVII, CCCLXV, CCCLXVI.
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July 13, 2024Res a dir. S’ha arribat fins aquí i s’ha avisat al Joan Fontana. Què hi farem, les rutines no sempre es segueixen.
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