The Italian Lyric Tradition: Dante, Petrarch, and Petrarchiste

Italian medieval and Renaissance poets distinguish themselves by telling a story of love through their poetry collections. Dante and Petrarch establish two different male heterosexual approaches to the female beloved, models with which subsequent Western love poetry come into dialogue and critique up to today. Beginning with a brief reading of Dante’s Vita nuova (published 1295) and his rime petrose (c. 1296), we will focus on Petrarch’s Canzoniere (c. 1327-1368, revised throughout his life to 1374). We will conclude with the reading of two women poets, the first renowned in the Western tradition, Gaspara Stampa (Veneto/Venice; works published posthumously, 1554) and Veronica Franco (Venice, 1575), whose heterosexual stories of love, in the female voice, both follow and controvert Dante’s and Petrarch’s. We will also explore musical settings for this poetic tradition