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 exposed his inner activities of longing for a happy life to people. 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 faraway places to 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.
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 with 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.
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 uncontrollable disputes,
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 for the reunification of the motherland.
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,
Now it's 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.
The song collection mainly praises his love for his girlfriend Laura, and also includes 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, longs for human happiness and pursues love and honor, but he can't break with 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.
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 a remarkable 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. Petrarch is knowledgeable. He is not only a famous poet, but also a historian, and he is the author of Who's Who.
Written in Latin, this book contains the biographies of 265,438+0 ancient Roman historical celebrities (from romulo to Caesar), as well as Pirus, Macedonian king Alexander and Hannibal. The author's purpose in writing this book is to show Italians a magnificent Roman history in the form of biographies, so that they can understand that Italy used to be a Roman empire spanning Europe, Asia and Africa, thus arousing their national pride and self-confidence, thus abandoning the fantasy of "world country" advocated by Christianity and embarking on the road of national independence and unity.
Patriotism and nationalism running through Biography of Celebrities is another important feature of Petrarch as a humanist.
It is worth mentioning that Petrarch also made an important contribution in the field of historiography, that is, he put forward a brand-new concept of historical period. In his view, there is a disgusting era between the ancient times he admired and the new era full of infinite hope. This era not only destroyed the essence of ancient culture, but also destroyed the "public morality", so it is a dark, ignorant and retrogressive era. In Petrarch's mind, the so-called "medieval" concept has already sprouted in the future, and all the contents of this concept have been stipulated. Petrarch has also made achievements in geography. He read a lot of geography books, mastered a lot of geographical information and drew the first map of Italy.