Book description
Franceso Petrarch (1304-1374), creator of the sonnet form, remained for
more than three hundred years the most influential poet in Europe, his
works more widely read than even those of Dante. This collection
contains English language versions of his poems from across six
centuries, in a wide variety of translations and reinterpretations.
Spanning the Trionfi series and the Canzoniere - Petrarch's empassioned
sonnet-sequence concerning his beloved Laura - it also includes great
English poems influenced by Petrarch. From Chaucer's early adaptation of
a Petrarchan sonnet in Troilus and Criseyde to the sixteenth century
translations by the Earl of Surrey, Byron's mocking consideration of the
Canzoniere in Don Juan and Ezra Pound's parody Silet, all provide a
unique insight into the significance of the founder of the European
lyric tradition.
Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), scholar and man of letters, is
considered the father of sonnet-writing.
Thomas P Roche is Professor of English at Princeton University. He
has written widely on Renaissance literature and has edited Spenser's
Faerie Queene for Penguin Classics.
