Love In Tina Turner's Canzoniere

What does love got to do with it? Tina Turner’s iconic lyrics have continued to phrase this question to various generations, leading one to wonder how Petrarch would have answered them. For him, it appears love was the basis of everything, including his life and work. Petrarch immortalized the convention of love in poetry through vivid imagery and stunning depictions of beauty. Through his poems, he takes the reader on a journey in which they truly feel his passion for the elusive Laura and eventually his shame in his undying love for her. However, paintings characterizing love in the Renaissance express a different, more rational, view than Petrarch, leading one to question why there is this discrepancy and what it means.

In the Canzoniere,

In his 35th poem he claims, “one sees from outside how I burn within” (30, 8). A truth he is supposed to keep hidden, for Laura is a married woman, his ardent desire is projected outwards from him, and he feels no shame in it, instead deciding to “speak to me, and I to him [Love]” (30, 14). Although his emotions can be seen from the outside, his love remains a private one. He never reveals to Laura how he really feels, instead silently focusing on her physical qualities and living in a state of anguish. However, after Laura’s death he begins to assert that the immense amounts of love he placed in her were erroneous and foolish, stating, “To love a mortal thing with such great faith, / the kind that should be placed in God alone, / is less becoming the more one looks for honor” (62, 99-101). This connects to the final theme in Petrarch’s love poems, the focus on worldly

Petrarch’s love poems are now referred to as the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet and notable poets from Shakespeare, to Chaucer, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and Percy Bysshe Shelly, to name a few, have adopted this form of poetry. Not only does it contain set poetic functions, such as it must contain fourteen lines in iambic pentameter or have three stanzas and a specific rhyme scheme, it also includes some of the more emotional aspects of Petrarch’s poems. For example, many Petrarchan sonnets have the characteristic of personification and blazon, which is a device that describes the physical attributes of a person, usually female, using similes and metaphors. Although this is a technical term that Petrarch most likely did not strive to utilize, he uses it to express his devotion and adoration of Laura. For example, Shakespeare uses blazon in Romeo and Juliet when Mercutio proclaims, “I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes, / By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, /By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh” (Shakespeare 2.1.17-19). Many other poets, great and unknown, have adopted these practices in order to compose poems about