Petrarchan Love

One day in class my professor used a term to describe a type of love, “Petrarchan.”

Have you ever “fallen in love” with someone you can never have?

Maybe it was a crush on the popular boy or girl in your high school or maybe it’s an obsession with a celebrity that goes beyond fandom, in any case, we have all probably felt that kind of love before. An infatuation with a person that is more than perfect, they are every fantasy you have ever have personified and walking the earth.

I researched the term “Petrarchan” and discovered it is derived from a fourteenth century poet named Francesco Petrarch. This man is amazing.

Petrarch

Petrarch lived in the early fourteenth century and had a passion for literature. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Petrarch felt that the legal profession was “selling justice” and refused to practice. Instead he became a priest in the catholic church and spent his days reading and writing literature. He was not allowed to marry and never fell in love during his time as a priest.

This is where the story gets good…

After leaving his profession as a priest he was in the church on Good Friday, it was a beautiful spring day and he was 23. In church, he saw a 17 year old girl named Laura; it was love at first sight. She was already married to an older man and refused Petrarch because of that, but did that stop his love? Absolutely not.

Laura became the inspiration for one of Petrarch’s greatest works, a collection of 366 poems called Il Canzoniere. Here is an exceprt about the day he first laid eyes on her…

It was on that day when the sun's ray
was darkened in pity for its Maker,
that I was captured, and did not defend myself,
because your lovely eyes had bound me, Lady.

It did not seem to me to be a time to guard myself
against Love's blows: so I went on
confident, unsuspecting; from that, my troubles
started, amongst the public sorrows.

Love discovered me all weaponless,
and opened the way to the heart through the eyes,
which are made the passageways and doors of tears:

so that it seems to me it does him little honour
to wound me with his arrow, in that state,
he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed.

Imagine a love so intense and real that the idea of that person alone inspires hundreds of poems. Petrarch’s love for Laura was unceasing and although it brought great inspiration, it caused him even greater agony. He had contempt for men who persused women and wrote poems exclaiming Laura’s beauty and magnificence rather than love poems to woo her to him. Petrarch put Laura on a pedestal and glorified her name with his writing. He loved her unconditionally and that love was real, even though he was never able to have her.

Petrarch loved Laura until the day she died. She died at the age of 38, meaning Petrarch loved her for 21 years. Upon her death he experienced extreme grief and never loved again.

That is Petrarchan love.

Petrarch wasn’t and isn’t alone. My professor used “petrarchan” love to describe the feelings of many modernist writers, Matthew Arnold being my favorite. The poor guy fell in love with a girl that didn’t love him back…

We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee;
Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.

The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learn'd--
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith may oft be unreturn'd.
Self-sway'd our feelings ebb and swell--
Thou lov'st no more;--Farewell! Farewell!

Arnold struggled with isolation and quite naturally a woman occupied his thoughts. Unlike Petrarch however, many of the modernist authors did not embrace their unrequited love, but bemoaned their loneliness and complained about their circumstances.

In our day we are no different than Petrarch or Arnold. Whether we like to admit it or not we all fall in love. We have to fall in love. In many ways Arnold mirrored the attitude of John Donne’s idea that, “no man is an island entire of itself.” As hard as we try to tell ourselves otherwise, we can’t, and don’t want to be alone. It helps to know that through the ages, people have felt just like we do.

So the next time you fall in love with a cute boy or girl you always see in the library, don’t feel so bad facebook stalking them, Petrarch or Arnold would do the same.