Discuss Petrarch's emotional tone, the way he uses elation and despair.

To Petrarch's narrator, language can be used not only to express emotion but to awaken it in others. Consider Sonnet #101 ("Ways apt and new to sing of love I'd find), the narrator asserts in the first two lines that if he expressed love in just the right way, the object of his desire would respond emotionally. In Sonnet #131 ("I'd sing of love in such a novel fashion" or "I would sing of love in such a new way"), the narrator claims that his words would cause the hard-hearted woman who has rejected him to regret her decision. Both these sonnets imply that there's a magic word, or combination of words, that can inspire emotion strong enough to overcome another human being's restraint.