PETRARCH THE MAN 



see how a critic can be so blind: leaving aside the poet's 

 two illegitimate children, there are references enough 

 in Petrarch's works to show that he was a man sorely 

 tempted by sensual passions, and we have reason to 

 suppose that he frequently succumbed. See, for in- 

 stance, the Secretum, ii, 87. Whether or not, in ar- 

 ranging the Canzoniere for publication, Petrarch (as 

 Cesareo supposes) meant to compose a sort of psycho- 

 logical romance, — the theme of which should be the 

 attainment of liberty by the soul, the subject of the 

 first part being the tumult of passions, of the second a 

 gradual return to thoughts of virtue and religion when 

 confronted by the spectacle of death, of the third the 

 attainment of the light of God, — it is almost certain 

 that, as we have them, the poems which make up the 

 Canzoniere are a very treacherous foundation upon 

 which to base theories about the personality of Laura 

 or Petrarch's relations to her. The matter is further 

 complicated by data such as the following, which con- 

 flict with one another: Petrarch's famous note on 

 Laura's death in the Ambrosian manuscript of Virgil 

 which belonged to him (the date of which, however, is 

 uncertain) speaks of the event with profound feeling, 

 and the, poet writes the beautiful sonnet, Oime il hel 

 viso; yet in his letters he says that his love for her was 

 a little spark which had been languishing for some time 

 and was extinguished by her death; again, he declares 

 that, even if her eyes were open, they would not exercise 

 their usual influence upon him. 



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