The Poetry of Petrarch

Someone could well accuse me: "Brother, youkeep pointing out the way, astray yourself,and maybe even now more lost than ever."Nice.The David Young translation is nice -- I almost put this down on the first verse. I'm accustomed to the Wyatt and Surrey translations, which are clumsy and at times not quite translations, but in English, sticking to the rhyme makes the verse slow and weighty. The Young translation, making no effort to keep the rhyme, reads more smoothly. If you were to only read one at a time, read Wyatt or Surrey or someone who sticks the form and rhyme -- to read them all, definitely go with Young.I'd only read a handful of these, and there are a handful of sonnets, from Wyatt through W.S, that I come back to year after year. A while back I went through a full read of the sonnets and similar in English Sixteenth Century Verse: An Anthology, a full read of W.S. sonnets, and Donne. And after that, why not go back to where it started?The main set of the love sonnets is a great read. Petrarch does not have the complexity of W.S., or even some of the other English sonneteers, but his verse is very nice, and, W.S. aside, better than his 16th and 17th century imitators (I bear a real fondness for Wyatt -- the least talented of all, but he really go it).The non-love verse in this is lesser, and almost all of the long verse (exception for the three Canzoni of the Eyes, which are quite good, and a couple others) -- I'd like to have a book that cuts all of that out. While at it, once the verse shifts to laments over the loss of Laura, it's almost all lesser (this is the last 100 or so) -- with that out, we'd have a nice book of 200 pages or so, one poem per page. While at it, I'd like to have a nice selection of Petrarch through Donne, 70-110 pages. The world would be better for it.And he shows me what he conceals from many;for bit by bit, within her lovely eyes,I read the things I say or write of love.

Dante was the hero of the great 20th century modernists: Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and Beckett. In describing the journey of a soul the great Italian poet created a coherent universe of beauty and meaning. Heirs to the French symbolists, the 20th century writers embraced the allegorical symbolism of The Divine Comedy with easy familiarity. The soul as envisioned by Dante was engaged in a journey of single motion: from the damnation of Original Sin to eventual Paradise through the office of Divine Love. As they lauded Dante they repudiated Petrarch, unable to discover a means to adequately value him. Petrarch is a poet of ambiguity. He writes about the heart's vagaries, the ambivalence of love, of life as process. Above all, he portrays the double motion of the soul, its coincident attraction to the earthly and the heavenly.It is no surprise that Petrarch's most appreciative reader was Shakespeare who modeled his sonnets upon those written by the Italian master. The English playwright is equally ambiguous in his sonnets, unafraid to depict love as a learning process filled with frustration and failure. Petrarch spent 47 years rebuilding the labyrinth of his love for Laura, the unrequited object of his desire who died of the plague in 1348. The Laura Petrarch creates becomes, like Mary, an object of adoration. The cycle of poems popularly known as the songbook or Canzoniere contains 366 lyrics of beauty, subtlety and freshness. There are several good translations, each with their own special excellence. Mark Musa's translation of the complete lyrics is personal and poetic featuring the original Italian on facing pages. His imagery is the most muted amongst recent translations, the poetry down-to-earth and sensual. His annotations for each poem are copious and thoughtful, making them a helpful teaching tool.Robert M. Durling created a facile and graceful prose translation of the lyrics that is literal and accurate, and filled with Petrarch's beautiful imagery. It conveys a superb understanding of the poetry, with the original Italian on facing pages making this experience of reading Petrarch probably the closest to the original.David Young's translation has a freshness and beauty that is invigorating. Its immediacy of expression, its elegance and radiant imagery are quite contemporary in feeling, making the poet seem less remote and more understandable to a modern audience. Petrarch's musings as translated by Young have a concreteness that gives the lyrics the feel of skillfully rendered stream-of-consciousness verbal music. Its modernity is its greatest asset. Where the collection falls short is in the paucity of annotations and the complete lack of the original Italian lyrics. Other more complete translations are massive tomes. David Young's rendering is concise and easy on the arms. If all you need is Petrarch revisited in exquisite English verses this is the volume to get. If you need a more in-depth experience, either of the other translations will fill the bill.Mike Birman

...this fellow started the Sonnet of Pusuits of Love (one type of advice a courtier had to know carefully how to counsel a king on) -- my phrase as to his particular type of verse subject matter -- though the French, having earlier influenced the courly aspects of romance (early signal era, that, of the coming of romantic nonchalance, or the courtier's advisory tactics, in part, and his eventual position, as the Britons, taken by the French, adopted it in the form of the Camelot version of Arthur, and Western epic verse began beyond just pastorals and GrecoRoman war and gods issues of ancient epics). This perfect copy is an inspiration, hence it rides with me, always...

The introduction is fascinating and helpful. The poetry beyond compare.

This is the best translation of Petrarch that I have yet read. But then David Young is the the supreme translator of Rilke's seminal works, "The Duino Elegies" and "The Sonnets to Orpheus," Which are magnificent works of art.

Who can not love Petrarch rich expressions, symbolic complexity, and his daring originality. The poetry of Petrarch is even beyond soul speak. A man's poetry that changed the world for the love of a woman...!Here is another great work of poetry - highly recommended A Romantic's Passion: The Tenth Muse

The only reason I bought Petrarch was that I was told by a professor that he founded the whole lovesick thing and invented the love sonnet. But this is a case of someone being famous for doing something first and not so much for doing it well. His poems are full of sick, but not of love; there is no feeling that translates into you as a reader, he just tells you how much he is in love and it stays academic and distant. Some of these poems are good but most I read and didn't absorb or feel effected by at all. I sold my copy and would recommend a library check out first- if you love him from sampling, then buy this, its a beautiful volume, good size and weight, well printed, it has every poem.