Literary achievements
songbook
From 1330, for about 17 years, Petrarch basically served in the Holy See and participated in some religious activities through the relationship of Cardinal Giovanni Corona. During this period, Petrarch lived a relatively leisurely life and had enough time to read and write poems, which laid a solid foundation for his later fame in the field of poetry. The long life in the church blocked the darkness, corruption, greed and hypocrisy of the church with his own eyes, and gradually formed a humanistic world view, which made him walk ahead of others on the stage of Renaissance.
Among Petrarch's Latin works, for example, De Veris Illustribus is a secret drama and a debate of Saint Augustine. Rerum Memorandarum Libri is an unfinished paper on important virtues, Deremediis Uriusque Fortunae is the most popular Latin prose, trainerium is a holy land guide, and Desui Ipsius et Multorum Ignorantia is against the Aristotelian school. His academic works and epics are written in Latin. His sonnets and Canzoni are in Italian.
lyrics
Petrarch's lyric poetry is created on the basis of inheriting the tradition of Provence knight poetry and Italian "gentle new style" poetry school love poetry, and has formed its own style. Its characteristics are light style, meaningful charm, and good at borrowing scenery to express emotion, which has reached a situation of blending scenes. He once wrote such a poem:
I write sadly as usual,
The whispers of birds and leaves
It lingers in my ears,
A small river, next to flowers on both sides.
Laughing in the breeze and waves.
Here, the poet expresses his thoughts and feelings of affirming and loving life by describing "flowers", "birds", "rivers" and "wind". If the poet is lyrical by borrowing scenery, then readers can experience humanistic feelings from poetic scenery.
Fourteen lines
Through long-term creative practice, Petrarch pushed sonnets to a perfect position and developed into a new poetic style, that is, "Petrarch's poetic style". This poetic style was later imitated by Chaucer, Shakespeare and other famous writers and poets, which opened up a new road for the development of European poetry. Therefore, Petrarch was honored as a "poet saint".
There are also a few patriotic poems and political satires in The Book of Songs, among which My Italy is the most representative. At that time, Italy was in a state of disintegration for a long time because of the interference of the Pope, the invasion of foreign enemies and the melee between the city-States. Seeing this reality, the poet wrote:
Look,
My motherland,
My beloved hometown,
Are fighting for unknown reasons.
And irrepressible controversy,
How cruel suffering is
Torture and pain!
This poem, which embodies blood and tears, is full of the poet's deep feelings of worrying about the country and the people, and has placed a strong desire to look forward to the reunification of the motherland.
Political satire
The political satire in the song mainly attacks the church. In the Middle Ages, the church was the general representative of feudal forces and the source of all evil. To promote humanitarianism, we must expose and oppose the church. The poet wrote angrily:
It used to be a great Roman city,
Evil Babylon,
There are countless sorrows, savage and fierce temples,
This is a temple for cults and a school for introducing heresies.
This is the birthplace of tears,
This is a dark prison, a place full of deception,
Here, kindness is stifled,
Fierce but growing,
This is the night and hell before people die,-
Won't God punish you?
This front shows the poet's fighting spirit and courage in the dark.
Love Poem
His best work is a collection of lyric poems written by Italians.
Petrarch's love poems are included in his masterpiece songji. Most of the poets in the Song Dynasty are diaries of impromptu poems, with 366 poems, including 14 lines, 3 17 lines, 29 love poems, 9 six lines, 7 narrative poems and 4 short poems. All the poems are divided into two parts: the birth of the virgin Laura and the death of the virgin Laura. Petrarch's love poems broke through the barriers of asceticism, swept away the art of war with hidden meanings and mysterious symbols in medieval poems, and directly described people in real life. He openly revealed to people his inner activities of longing for a happy life. In his works, Laura is no longer a pretentious and unattainable lady in the Middle Ages, but a simple, cheerful and amiable woman in the new era. Because Petrarch realistically describes Laura's beauty from the perspective of human nature, his poems are fresh in style and have strong artistic appeal. Here is a well-known story. When his love poems spread, they aroused the discussion of readers. Many people even have a crush on Laura. They took the trouble to come to avignon from far away in order to feast their eyes and enjoy the incomparable beauty. But at this time, Laura is a middle-aged woman, and she has already lost her former style, which makes these people from afar impulsive and disappointed.
The song collection mainly sings about his love for his girlfriend Laura [1], and there are also several political lyrics, praising the motherland, calling for peace and unity, and exposing the corruption of the church. The Collection of Songs reflects the poet's inner contradiction: he loves life and nature, looks forward to human happiness, and pursues love and honor, but he can't escape from religious tradition and asceticism; Patriotic enthusiasm and national consciousness, but divorced from the people and despised the masses. These contradictions are exactly the contradictions of humanists in the transition from the Middle Ages to the new era. His lyric poetry inherits the tradition of Provence and the "gentle new style" poetry school, overcomes the abstract and obscure meaning, shows the new humanistic spirit, and makes love poems close to life. The poet pinned his ideal and spiritual quality on Laura, and praised her physical beauty again and again. Petrarch is also very sensitive to the beauty of nature. Some poems combine the praise of Laura with the description of nature. The poem "Clear, Cool and Sweet Water" is an obvious example. Petrarch is better at describing inner changes and expressing love experiences than previous poets. These poems all show humanists' love view centered on personal happiness. His collection of songs paved the way for European bourgeois lyric poetry in both content and form. Sonnets have reached artistic perfection in European poetry and become an important poetic style.