Petrarch in Britain: Interpreters, Imitators, and Translators over 700 years (Proceedings of the British Academy 146)

Petrarch was Italy's second most famous writer (after Dante), and indeed from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries he was much better known and more influential in English literature than Dante. His Italian love lyrics constituted the major influence on European love poetry for at least two centuries from 1400 to 1600, and in Britain he was imitated by Chaucer, the Elizabethans, and other lyric poets up until the end of the eighteenth century. With Romanticism Dante ousted Petrarch from his pre-eminent position, but in our post-Romantic age, attention has now started to swing back to Petrarch. This volume is the most comprehensive and up to date survey of Petrarch's literary legacy in Britain. Starting with his own views of those whom he called the barbari Britanni, the volume then explores a number of key topics: Petrarch's analysis of the self; his dialogue with other classical and Italian authors; Petrarchism and anti-Petrarchism in Renaissance Italy; Petrarchism in England and Scotland; and Petrarch's modern legacy in both Italy and Britain. Many important texts and poets are considered, including Giordano Bruno, Leopardi, Foscolo, Ascham, Sidney, Spenser, and Walter Savage Landor. The twenty chapters collected here are written by major scholars of Petrarch in the UK and Italy and will be essential reading for scholars and students of both Italian and British literature, as well as comparative literature. Introduction......Page 2 1 Petrarch and the barbari Britanni......Page 8 2 Petrarch solitarius......Page 26 3 The Ethics of Ignorance: Petrarch's Epicurus and Averroës and the Structures of the De Sui Ipsius et Multorum Ignorantia......Page 36 4 Petrarch's Second (and Third) Death......Page 58 5 Poets and Heroes in Petrarch's Africa: Classical and Medieval Sources......Page 80 6 Petrarch Reading Dante: The Ascent of Mont Ventoux (Familiares 4. 1)......Page 90 7 Petrarch and Cino da Pistoia: A Moment in the Pre-history of the Canzoniere......Page 108 8 Petrarch and the Italian Reformation......Page 124 9 Petrarch, Sidney, Bruno......Page 142 10 Renaissance Misogyny and the Rejection of Petrarch......Page 154 11 Impersonations of Laura in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-century Italy......Page 170 12 Other Petrarchs in Early Modern England......Page 194 13 Thomas Watson's Hekatompathia and European Petrarchism......Page 208 14 The Comedy of Astrophil: Petrarchan Motifs in Sidney's Astrophil and Stella......Page 220 15 Sidney, Spenser, and Political Petrarchism......Page 234 16 Petrarch and the Scottish Renaissance Sonnet......Page 250 17 Leopardi and Petrarch......Page 266 18 Between Tradition and Transgression: Amelia Rosselli's Petrarch......Page 290 19 Nineteenth-century British Biographies of Petrarch......Page 308 20 Translating Petrarch......Page 330 Surveying Petrarch's legacy in Britain, this volume explores a number of key topics: Petrarch's analysis of the self; his dialogue with other classical and Italian authors; Petrarchism and anti-Petrarchism in Renaissance Italy; Petrarchism in England and Scotland; and his modern legacy in both Italy and Britain.