El Blog de Twanda

        What I noticed in Petrarch’s verses was the vivid imagery that contrasts his emotions.  His elation is evident in the stanzas in which he extols Laura, his lady love.   In verse 61, he begins each stanza with, “Blessed be . . .”  He talks of the sweet suffering that he felt as the arrows of love pierced him to the “depths of [his] heart.”   He talks of,  “the sighs, the tears, and the passion.”   In verse 126 he talks of her in terms of, “her beautiful limbs,” her “angelic breast,” her hair like, “gold and pearl.” and her “divine bearing.”  In her presence, he forgets where he is and feels as if he were in heaven.      By contrast, Petrarch’s world has crumbled around him in verse 189.  Here, he uses the image of a ship tossed by the wind and rain to describe his despair.  His ship is “full of oblivion,” sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, with danger on both sides of him.  Sighs, hopes, and desire are the winds that blow the ship around.   Tears and disdain are the rain that drench the sails.  He loses hope of finding a harbor.  Something has happened to cause this hopelesness for Petrarch.  The verses that were included in teh reading do not articulate the cause of his despair, but by inference, he has lost his love somehow.  At my first reading, it seemed to me that Petrarch (as narrator) dies, and his despair is a result of this separation from his love.  After reading a second time, I think that he lost his lady somehow.  His descriptions of her are told as remembrances.  When he talks of his his death, it is not an immanent event, but an, “if it is my destiny.” The sails of his boat in verse 126 are made of “error and ignorance,” perhaps referring to his naive love for his lady.  Because of his despair at losing her, his guiding lights, reason and art, do not serve him, and he feels that he will never find a harbor again.