2. Where Does the Turn Or Transition Take Place?
Name: ______English 11
PoetryUnitWorksheet 1
Francesco Petrarca, or “Petrarch” (1304-1374)
1. How does a Petrarchan sonnet differ from a Shakespearean sonnet? What is the structure of Petrarch’s sonnets?
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2. Where does the “turn” or transition take place?
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3. Describe the two-part statement in Petrarch’s sonnets?
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1rhyme scheme
She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine, _____
A noble lady in a humble home, _____
And now her time for heavenly bliss has come, _____
'Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine. _____
The soul that all its blessings must resign, _____
And love whose light no more on earth finds room, _____
Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom, _____
Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine; _____
They weep within my heart; and ears are deaf _____
Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care, _____
And naught remains to me save mournful breath. _____
Assuredly but dust and shade we are, _____
Assuredly desire is blind and brief, _____
Assuredly its hope but ends in death. _____
2rhyme scheme
Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame _____
Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy? _____
Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy _____
Whom all the world doth as my lady name! _____
How honour grows, and pure devotion's flame, _____
How truth is joined with graceful dignity, _____
There thou may'st learn, and what the path may be _____
To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim; _____
There learn soft speech, beyond all poet's skill, _____
And softer silence, and those holy ways _____
Unutterable, untold by human heart. _____
But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill, _____
This none can copy! since its lovely rays _____
Are given by God's pure grace, and not by art. _____
3rhyme scheme
Those eyes, 'neath which my passionate rapture rose, _____
The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile _____
Could my own soul from its own self beguile, _____
And in a separate world of dreams enclose, _____
The hair's bright tresses, full of golden glows, _____
And the soft lightning of the angelic smile _____
That changed this earth to some celestial isle, _____
Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows. _____
And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn, _____
Left dark without the light I loved in vain, _____
Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn; _____
Dead is the source of all my amorous strain, _____
Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn, _____
And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain. _____
4. What are the characteristics of a Shakespearean sonnet?
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The Vanity of his Passion
O you, who hears in scattered verse the sound
Of all those sighs with which my heart I fed,
When I, by youthful error was misled,
Unlike my present self in passion drowned;
Who hears the woes, the pleadings that abound
Throughout my song, by hopes and vain griefs bred;
If ever true love its influence over you shed,
Oh ! let your pity be with pardon crowned.
But now full well I see how to the crowd
For a long time I proved a public jest:
E'ven by myself my folly is allowed:
And of my vanity what's left is shame,
Repentance, and a knowledge deep impressed,
That worldly pleasure is a passing dream.
Sonnet 1To Laura in Life
Love Follows him Everywhere
Alone, and lost in thought, the desert glade
Measuring I roam with lingering steps and slow;
And still a watchful glance around me throw,
Anxious to shun the print of human tread:
No other means I find, no surer aid
From the world's prying eye to hide my woe:
So well my wild disordered gestures show,
And love-lorn looks, the fire within me bred,
That well I think each mountain, wood and plain,
And river knows, what I from man conceal,
What dreary hues my life's fool chances dim.
Yet whatever wild or savage paths I've taken,
Wherever I wander, love attends me still,
Soft whispringto my soul, and I to him.
Sonnet 28 To Laura in Life
Counsel to Abandon Earthly Pleasure
Friend, as we both in confidence complain
To see our ill-placed hopes return in vain,
Let that chief good which must for ever please
Exalt our thought and fix our happiness.
This world as some gay flowery field is spread,
Which hides a serpent in its painted bed,
And most it wounds when most it charms our eyes,
At once the tempter and the paradise.
And would you, then, sweet peace of mind restore,
And in fair calm expect your parting hour?—
Leave the mad train, and court the happy few.
Well may it be replied, “O friend, you show
Others the path, from which so often you
Have strayed, and now stray farther than before.”
Sonnet 78 To Laura in Life
To Antonio of Ferrara, who Lamented Petrarch's Supposed Death.
Those pious lines wherein are finely met
Proofs of high genius and a spirit kind.
Had so much influence on my grateful mind
That instantly in hand my pen I set
To tell you that death's final blow—which yet
Shall me and every mortal surely find—
I have not felt, though I too nearly join'd
The confines of his realm without regret;
But I turn'd back again because I read
Writ o'er the threshold that the time to me
Of life predestinate was not all fled,
Though its last day and hour I could not see.
Then once more let your sad heart comfort know,
And love the living worth which dead it honored so.
Sonnet 96To Laura in Life
His Lyre is now Attuned only to Woe
The eyes, the face, the limbs of heavenly mold,
So long the theme of my impassioned lay,
Charms which so stole me from myself away,
That strange to other men the course I hold;
The crisped locks of pure and lucid gold,
The lightning of the angelic smile, whose ray
To earth could all of paradise convey,
A little dust are now —to feeling cold.
And yet I live—but that I live bewail,
Sunk the loved light that through the tempest led
My shattered bark, bereft of mast and sail:
Hushed be for aye the song that breathed love's fire!
Lost is the theme on which my fancy fed,
And turned to mourning my once tuneful lyre.
Sonnet 24 To Laura in Death