Petrarch: Sonnets Characters

Petrarch: Sonnets Character List

Narrator

The narrator, presumably the voice of Petrarch himself, is present in all of his sonnets. In some of them the narrator addresses a more general audience, but in many he speaks to or about a specific woman he loves.

Audience

The audience is the unspoken listener that Petrarch's narrator addresses in the sonnets. As a character, it is able to be interpreted as the reader or a specific person the narrator is addressing who they may know more intimately, such as a friend or a lover.

Laura

Someone beloved of the narrator who has likely passed away. Although Laura is dead, the narrator still feels a strong love for her and hopes to join her in heaven one day.

"Her"

A love to whom Petrarch refers in many of his sonnets. Often the woman of whom he speaks does not return his love, causing the narrator of the sonnets to despair.

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