Comparing the Sonnets of Petrarchan and Shakespearean in Style, Structure and Subject Approach

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Shakespeare and Petrarch, two poets popular for their contributions on the issue of love, both tackle the subject of their work through sonnet, yet there are key contrasts in their style, structure, and in the way, each approaches their subjects. Moreover, it is clear that in "Sonnet 130," Shakespeare in fact parodies Petrarch's style and thoughts as his storyteller describes his mistress, whose "eyes are in no way as the sun" (Shakespeare 1918). Shakespeare seems, by all accounts, to mock the exaggerated descriptions expanded throughout Petrarch’s piece by giving an English poem portraying the speaker’s love in terms that are characteristic of a flawed woman not a goddess. On the other hand, Petrarch's work is full of symbolism. In reviewing "Sonnet 292" from the Canzoniere, through “Introduction to Literature and Arts,” Petrarch’s utilization of resemblance and the romanticizing of Petrarch's female subject are normal for the Petrarchan work. The leading major contrast between the two poems is the piece structure utilized (McLaughlin).
Petrarch's "Sonnet 292" is composed in the Italian 14-line poem structure comprising an eight-line octave. It also contains six-line sestet. The fundamental characteristics for the Petrarchan poem structure is the two-part structure. To attain this, the author divides the eight-line octave into two four-line stanzas and the sestet into two three-line stanzas. This structure takes into account improvement of two parts of the subject, expanding the point of view of the piece. While some rhyme plot remains after the interpretation of the lyric from Italian, it does not provide the correct representation of the definitive complexity of Petrarch's work that was indispensable to putting across his mess...

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...de to World Literature. Ed. Lesley Henderson. 2nd ed. New York: St. James, 1995. N. page. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Nov. 2013. .
Petrarch, Francesco. “Sonnet 90.” The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed.,
Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1905. Print
Shakespeare, William. “Sonnet 130.” The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed.,
Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1918. Print

Steele, Felicia Jean. "Shakespeare's SONNET 130." Explicator 62.3 (2004): 132-137. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
"“Wounded by One of Love’s Arrows”: Petrarch and Courtly Love." ReoCitiie. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2013. .

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