Essay Questions

Compare and contrast Sonnets #136 and #137.

These are two of Petrarch's political sonnets directed against the Papal Court of Avignon. Both are extremely critical not of Christianity but of abuses and corruption that Petrarch's speaker believes exist at the Court. Both are in Petrarch's standard sonnet form, and both suggest that sexually inappropriate behavior is occurring. Both refer to excessive luxury, corruption, and greed. However, they do it in different ways.

Whereas Sonnet #136 speaks directly to the people of the Papal Court and makes use of the second person, Sonnet #137 is written in the third person and speaks not to the offending people but about them. Sonnet #136 accuses the Papal Court explicitly of being fixated on wine and good living, but in #137 the argument is made with metaphorical references to Bacchus and Venus. Sonnet #136 contains a wish that the Papal Court be destroyed; #137 makes a reference to the "whore of Babylon" and suggests that a replacement is already in the works.

How does Petrarch depict the power of verse and poetry?

In Sonnet #131 and others like it, Petrarch claims that words, and specifically the right words, can forcibly compel people to experience strong emotions. He asserts that if he could only find the right way to talk about love, the object of his desire would be overcome with emotion and would regret having rejected him. Ironically, even Petrarch's vocabulary fails to gain him Laura's favor.

What literary techniques does Petrarch use in Sonnet #191?

He begins with a simile, stating that the sight of his beloved satisfies him emotionally the same way the sight of God satisfies people spiritually and grants them eternal life. He employs the superlative by saying that he never saw his beloved as lovely as she is today. However, at the turn of the sonnet, Petrarch employs contradiction and explains that he is not in fact satisfied because the moment of contact is too brief. There is an allusion to the classical "elemental" spirits or creatures that, in mythology, subsist only on fire (salamanders), air (sylphs), and water (undines). He suggests that he ought to be like these creatures and subsist solely on the sight of his beloved.

Explain the war and battle imagery in Sonnet #3.

Petrarch uses capture as a metaphor for being in love, because his attention has been captured by the eyes of a woman to whom he is attracted. He describes himself as being "unarmed" and unprepared for a struggle, and he describes himself as passively accepting the "blows" or attacks of love. The arrow in the poem is a reference to the Roman deity Cupid, who supposedly caused people to fall in love by shooting them with magic arrows.