Petrarch

by Kirkham, Victoria; Maggi, Armando

• ISBN13: 9780226437422
• ISBN10: 0226437426
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-05-02
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Although Francesco Petrarca (130474) is best known today for cementing the sonnet's place in literary history, he was also a philosopher, historian, orator, and one of the foremost classical scholars of his age. Petrarch: A Critical Guide to the Complete Worksis the only comprehensive, single-volume source to which anyone-scholar, student, or general reader-can turn for information on each of Petrarch's works, its place in the poet's oeuvre, and a critical exposition of its defining features. A sophisticated but accessible handbook that illuminates Petrarch's love of classical culture, his devout Christianity, his public celebrity, and his struggle for inner peace, this encyclopedic volume covers both Petrarch's Italian and Latin writings and the various genres in which he excelled: poem, tract, dialogue, oration, and letter. A biographical introduction and chronology anchor the book, making Petrarchan invaluable resource for specialists in Italian, comparative literature, history, classics, religious studies, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.

Author Biography

Victoria Kirkham is professor emerita of Romance languages at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of three books, most recently of Fabulous Vernacular: Boccaccio's Filocolo and the Art of Medieval Fiction. Armando Maggi is professor of Romance languages and a member of the Committee on the History of Culture at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including Satan's Rhetoric and In the Company of Demons, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Note on Bibliographical Forms and Abbreviations	p. xiii
Chronology of Petrarch's Life and Works	p. xv
A Life's Work	p. 1
An Enduring Vernacular Legacy
The Self in the Labyrinth of Time (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta)	p. 33
The Poem of Memory (Triumpbi)	p. 63
Petrarch's Damned Poetry and the Poetics of Exclusion (Rime disperse)	p. 85
Literary Debut, Latin Humanism, and Orations
The Rebirth of the Romans as Models of Character (De viris illustribus)	p. 103
Petrarch's Philological Epic (Africa)	p. 113
The Beginnings of Humanistic Oratory: Petrarch's Coronation Oration (Collatio laureationis)	p. 131
Petrarch the Courtier: Five Public Speeches (Arenga facta Venecijs, Arringa facta Mediolani, Arenga facta in civitate Novarie, Collatio brevis coram Iohanne Francorum rege, Orazione per la seconda ambasceria veneziana)	p. 141
The Unforgettable Books of Things to Be Remembered (Rerum memorandarum libri)	p. 151
Contemplative Serenity
Pastoral as Personal Mythology in History (Bucolicum carmen)	p. 165
"You Will Be My Solitude": Solitude as Prophecy (De vita solitaria)	p. 179
A Humanistic Approach to Religious Solitude (De otio religioso)	p. 197
Journeys into The Soul
The Burning Question: Crisis and Cosmology in the Secret (Secretum)	p. 211
Petrarch's Personal Psalms (Psalmi penitentiales)	p. 219
The Place of the Itinerarium (Itinerarium ad sepulcbrum domini nostri Ybesu Christi)	p. 229
Life's Turbulence
On the Two Faces of Fortune (De remediis utriusque fortune)	p. 245
The Art of Invective (Invective contra medicum)	p. 255
The Economy of Invective and a Man in the Middle (De sui ipsius et multorum ignorantia)	p. 263
Petrarch The Epistler
A Poetic Journal (Epystole)	p. 277
The Book without a Name: Petrarch's Open Secret (Liber sine nomine)	p. 291
The Uncollected Poet (Lettere disperse)	p. 301
Petrarch's Epistolary Epic: Letters on Familiar Matters (Rerum familiarum libri)	p. 309
Letters of Old Age: Love between Men, Griselda, and Farewell to Letters (Rerum senilium libri)	p. 321
Epilogue
To Write As Another: The Testamentum (Testamentum)	p. 333
Notes	p. 347
Bibliography	p. 479
List of Contributors	p. 521
Index	p. 527
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