Petrarch

Describe the role of the poetics in Petrarch's love sonnets. Describe whether you believe that Petrarch refutes the notion of skepticism with his ability to use the arguments of the stoics against them regarding stoic determinism. Does his refutation of his fears with notions of hope justify the validity of his love that is everlasting. Describe how absolute truth in beauty and nature is immutable as it is shown through his poetics describing Laura as one who helps him to transcend the transitory nature of time and arrive at absolute and universal truths through divine notions of love. Describe his balance of the ethereal and eternal with the rational mind based on his deeply reflective contemplations of his life as he uses Laura to transcend time and space to defy his internal fears as he conjures them from his reflections on the transitory nature of life. Or you may write a paper that describes how Petrarch is a skeptic, except for the fact that he holds onto mere religious beliefs based on his love for Laura as he wavers between fear and hope throughout the poems. Can Petrarch's fears be interpreted as ones that overpower his hopes and lend to future skeptical philosophies found later in the Enlightenment? Take a stance on how you interpret his poems.