Il Canzoniere also known as the Rime Sparse (Scattered Rhymes), but originally titled (Fragments of vulgar things, that is Fragments composed in vernacular), is a collection of poems by the Italian humanist, poet, and writer Francesco Petrarch.

Though the majority of Petrarch

Petrarch

Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...

's output was in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, the Canzoniere was written in the vernacular

Vernacular

A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...

, a language of trade, despite Petrarch's view that Italian was less adequate for expression. Of its 366 poems, the vast majority are in sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

 form (317), though the sequence contains a number of canzoni

Canzone

Literally "song" in Italian, a canzone is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal...

 (29), sestine (9), madrigal

Madrigal (poetry)

Madrigal is the name of a form of poetry, the exact nature of which has never been decided in English.The definition given in the New English Dictionary, "a short lyrical poem of amatory character," offers no distinctive formula; some madrigals are long, and many have nothing whatever to do with...

s (4), and ballate (7). Its central theme is the poet's love for Laura

Laura de Noves

Laura de Noves was the wife of Count Hugues de Sade . She could be the Laura that the Humanist poet Francesco Petrarch wrote about extensively; however, she has never been positively identified as such. Laura had a great influence on Petrarch's life and lyrics...

, a woman Petrarch allegedly met on April 6, 1327, in the Church of Sainte Claire in Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

. Though disputed, the inscription in his copy of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 records this information. Petrarch's meticulous dating of his manuscripts has allowed scholars to deduce that the poems were written over a period of forty years, with the earliest dating from shortly after 1327, and the latest around 1368. The transcription and ordering of the sequence itself went on until 1374, the year of the poet's death. The two sections of the sequence which are divided by Laura's death have traditionally been labelled 'In vita' (In life') and 'In morte' (In death) respectively, though Petrarch made no such distinction. His work would go on to become what Spiller calls 'the single greatest influence on the love poetry of Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 Europe until well into the seventeenth century'.

Central ideas

The most evident purpose of the Canzoniere is to praise Laura, yet questions concerning the virtue of love in relation to the Christian religion and desire are always present. Antithesis

Antithesis

Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...

 are also key to the sequence and in one sense represent Petrarch's search for balance; these would later be exploited by Petrarchists in Europe but represent only one aspect of the Rimes. This leads on to the essential paradox

Paradox

Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...

 of Petrarchan love, where love is desired yet painful: fluctuation between states is a means of expressing this instability. The changing mind of man and the passing of time are also central themes, as is the consideration of the art of poetic creation itself. Some other themes are desire, isolation, unrequited love, and vanity of youth.

The central theme in the Canzoniere is the love for Laura, whom Petrarch fell in love with at first sight. Laura was already married and turned down all of Petrarch's advances. It is unknown if the two ever spoke. They met on Good Friday and Laura allegedly died on Good Friday.

In any case, it would be improper to see Canzoniere as uniquely inspired by love for Laura. Other themes are important: religion, poetry, politics, time, glory. The love theme itself should be considered as the nucleus around which Petrarca develops his deep psychological analysis: thanks to his poems inspired by Laura (laurus

Laurus

-Overview:Laurus is a genus of evergreen trees belonging to the Laurel family, Lauraceae. The genus includes three species, whose diagnostic key characters often overlap ....

 is the symbol for poetry) the poet aspires to reach glory, which in turn can fight the all-destroying power of time. Even glory, however, cannot guarantee real eternity, because in Christian ideology, only faith in Christian salvation does grant this.

Influences on the Canzoniere

Petrarch uses the Metamorphoses of Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 to convey themes of instability, and also sources Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

. Petrarch inherited aspects of artifice and rhetorical skill from Sicilian courtly poetry, including that of the inventor of the sonnet form, Giacomo da Lentini

Giacomo da Lentini

Giacomo da Lentini, also known as Giàcumu da Lintini and Jacopo Notaro, was an Italian poet of the 13th century. He was a senior poet of the Sicilian School and was a notary at the court of the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II...

. In addition, the troubadour

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

 poets who wrote love poems concerned with chivalry

Chivalry

Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...

 in Provencal (in the canso or canzone form) are likely to have had an influence, primarily because of the position of adoration in which they placed the female figure. Dante

DANTE

Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...

, and the school of the 'dolce stil nuovo' or sweet new style, developed this placement of the female and proposed that the pursuit of love was a noble virtue.

In England

In 1380, Chaucer adopted part of the Canzoniere to form three stanzas of rhyme royal in Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde is a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war in the Siege of Troy. It was composed using rime royale and probably completed during the mid 1380s. Many Chaucer scholars regard it...

, Book I. Over 150 years would pass until Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Howard, KG, , known as The Earl of Surrey although he never was a peer, was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry.-Life:...

, would translate several Rimes in the court environment of Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

. Their translations are largely credited with making the ten-syllable line normative in English, and in George Puttenham

George Puttenham

George Puttenham was a sixteenth-century English writer, literary critic, and notorious rake. He is generally considered to be the author of the enormously influential handbook on poetry and rhetoric, The Arte of English Poesie ....

's 1589 Art of English Poesie are credited with reforming the English language:

As novices newly crept out of the schooles of Dante, Arioste and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie, from that it had bene before, and for that cause may justly be sayd the first reformers of our English meetre and stile.

Thus, their translations of Rimes from the Canzoniere paved the way for the sonnet sequences of Sidney and Shakespeare.

In France

Early French soneteers included Clement Marot

Clément Marot

Clément Marot was a French poet of the Renaissance period.-Youth:Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot , whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman from the Caen...

 and Mellin Saint Gelais. The latter spent nine years in Italy before returning to France to spread knowledge of Petrarch and Serafino. The first sonnet sequence to be published in France came in 1549 in the form of Joachim du Bellay

Joachim du Bellay

Joachim du Bellay was a French poet, critic, and a member of the Pléiade.-Biography:He was born at the Château of La Turmelière, not far from Liré, near Angers, being the son of Jean du Bellay, Lord of Gonnor, first cousin of the cardinal Jean du Bellay and of Guillaume du Bellay.Both his parents...

's L'Olive. When first published it contained 50 sonnets but the next year Bellay added more poems and raised the total number to 115 - references to Petrarch are made in fourteen of these sonnets. Pierre de Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard was a French poet and "prince of poets" .-Early life:...

also took up Petrarch's influence and his sonnets are credited for their originality.

Further reading

• Durling, Robert M., The Rime Sparse and Other Lyrics (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1976).
• Spiller, Michael R.G, The Development of the Sonnet (London: Routledge, 1992).
• The Canzoniere Online: http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=1