(urth) There Are Doors
James B. Jordan
jbjordan4 at cox.net
Thu May 21 17:17:39 PDT 2009
Another question is how much Petrarch there is here. Laura, you know.
From Wikiland:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/File:Francesco_Petrarca01.jpg>
[]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/File:Francesco_Petrarca01.jpg>
[]
Laura de Noves
On
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/April_6>April
6, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/1327>1327,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Good_Friday>Good
Friday, after giving up his vocation as a priest,
the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church
of Sainte-Claire
d'<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Avignon>Avignon
awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the
Rime sparse ("Scattered rhymes"). Later,
Renaissance poets who copied Petrarch's style
named this collection of 366 poems
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Il_Canzoniere>Il
Canzoniere ("Song Book"). Laura may have been
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Laura_de_Noves>Laura
de Noves, the wife of Count
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//w/index.php?title=Hugues_de_Sade&action=edit&redlink=1>Hugues
de Sade (ancestor of the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Marquis_de_Sade>Marquis
de Sade). There is little definite information in
Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she
is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest,
dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little
or no personal contact. According to his
"Secretum", she refused him for the very proper
reason that she was already married to another
man. He channeled his feelings into love poems
that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and
wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who
pursue women. Upon her death in 1348, the poet
finds that his
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Grief>grief
is as difficult to live with as was his former
despair. Later in his "Letter to Posterity",
Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled
constantly with an overwhelming but pure love
affair - my only one, and I would have struggled
with it longer had not premature death, bitter
but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling
flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have
always been entirely free from desires of the
flesh, but I would be lying if I did".
While it is possible she was an idealized or
pseudonymous character - particularly since the
name "Laura" has a
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Linguistics>linguistic
connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch
coveted - Petrarch himself always denied it. His
frequent use of l'aura, as in "Erano i capei
d'oro a l'aura sparsi" is also remarkable: for
example, the line may both mean "her hair was all
over Laura's body", and "the wind ("l'aura") blew
through her hair". There is psychological realism
in the description of Laura and Petrarch's love
is nothing conventional - unlike some cliché
women of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Troubadour>troubadours
and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Courtly_love>courtly
love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy,
but his unrequited love creates unendurable
desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover
and the
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Christian_mysticism>mystic
Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the
two, his quest for love a hopeless, endless agony.
Laura is unreachable - the few physical
descriptions are vague, almost unpalpable as the
love pines for, and such is perhaps the power of
his verse, which lives off the melodies it evokes
against the fading, diaphane image that is no
more consistent than a ghost.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Francesco_De_Sanctis>Francesco
De Sanctis remarks much the same thing in his
Storia della lera italiana, and contemporary
critics agree on the powerful music of his verse:
Gianfranco Contini, in a famous essay on
Petrarch's language ("Preliminari sulla lingua
del Petrarca". Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin,
Einaudi, 1964) has spoken of linguistic
indetermination - Petrarch never rises above the
"bel pié" (her lovely foot): Laura is too holy to
be painted, it is an awe-inspiring goddess.
Sensuality and passion are rather suggested by
the rhythm and music that shape the vague contours of the lady.
Nutria
James B. Jordan
Director, Biblical Horizons
Box 1096
Niceville, FL 32588
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com
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