One of the main points that we discussed in class this week was Petrarch’s poetry sequence and how his poems about Laura helped create the feminine beauty ideals for western civilization.  All of the aspects of the subject Laura in Petrarch’s poetry are isolated. For instance the author writes about Laura’s hair, eyes, voice, etc., but never speaks about her as a whole person, which also helps to create the untouchable, unattainable ideal of the perfect women in our society. Petrarch uses allusions to both Greek mythology and Christianity to both allude himself to God, and also as a political statement against the church.

Petrach’s writing will become the “idealized” western standard for what women should look like and strive to become, even if it is an unattainable goal. Petrarch’s objectification of the female figure and employment of the male gaze serves a larger purpose within his writing to create an image of himself as a speaker and situates himself as an observer of the “other,” the female figure. When we were reading Petrarch’s first five poems, we noted in our group Petrarch’s tendency to use the figure of Laura as an excuse to talk about himself. We discussed the significance of the name Laura and its connection to a crown of laurels, and how Petrarch essentially crowned himself as a master poet through the possibly imaginary character of Laura. The references to aspects of crowning within the sequence helped to establish Petrarch’s ideal “I,” and through the sequence Petrarch portrays Laura as an object of his perspective, situating himself as the subject of the poems.

 

Petrach’s 366 poems are his interpretations of his life and within them he is the viewer. He mixes prominent religious symbols of western religion and ancient Greek and Roman myths (Cupid, Apollo and Daphne and Good Friday). All these aspects help him to portray his own thoughts and feelings into writing. It becomes the intersubjective relation between himself and the reader. Petrarch puts into his poems understandable concepts to help his readers understand what he is implying.

 

 Petrarch’s break from St. Augustine is controversial in that the Rime sparse indulges in the sins that St. Augustine spent all of Confessions repenting for. We discussed Dante’s revolution of literary culture through his use of vernacular Italian instead of Latin. Latin was a “holy” language controlled by the church elite, so releasing his writings in Italian allowed his work to be accessible to the both the literate and illeterate public.

 

Petrach’s order crucifiction (falling in love) leads to the death of Laura and his spiritual experience with the Virgin Mary. The storyline furthered the autobiographical style initiated by St. Augustine.

 

In class, we touched on the topic of Petrarch’s breakdown of Laura’s name. By breaking down the individual syllables of Laura’s name and situating them within other words, Petrarch further divides Laura’s whole self into her parts, similarly to how he describes her body parts individually rather than her person as a whole. We briefly discussed how the articulation of individual syllables can reflect physical movement, for example, in the linguistic theory of syllable-grip congruency, certain syllable articulations are known to be connected to specific motor movements. Here is the article about syllable-grip congruency: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1195416 While this may not perfectly apply to Petrarch’s dissection of Laura’s name, it’s important to note the relationship between syllabic articulation and physical movement, since this may reveal some of the intended intensity within the specific poem.

This Miranda writing for Ava, Miguel and Zak