Petrarchism
 
  
The influence of the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca is evident in baroque German love poetry – this is why we take this little trip to Italy:
 
1. European importance
 
The poetry written under the influence of Petrarch (1304-1374) forms the second set of a common European poetry after the songs of the troubadours of the Middle Ages. Baroque love poetry all over Europe, particularly the then fashionable sonnet, was greatly inspired by the famous Italian master of the 14th century.
 
2. Petrarch`s life
 
Petrarch was born in 1304 as the second son of a Florentine lawyer. At an early age, he was instructed in Grammar and Rhetoric. About 1316 he started to study law and began to take interest in the love poetry of the court. He travelled a lot (in Germany he visited Cologne) and even worked as a diplomat for the Pope. 1327, in Avignon, Petrarch met Laura, the great, unhappy love of his life. In 1348, she died from the plague. 26 years later, on July 18th, 1374, Petrarch died of a fever.
 
3. Petrarch`s "Canzoniere" 

His most famous work, a collection called "Canzoniere", consists of 366 poems, thereof 317 sonnets. Between 1341 and his death in 1374, Petrarch wrote as many as 9 versions of it. 

This comprehensive collection is basically about the meeting of the speaker of the poems with his beloved Laura a love which is not returned and which is characterised by yearning and desperation up to the early death of his love. 

Laura`s beauty is described in extreme metaphors so much so that she becomes almost unreal. The speaker finds himself in an almost unbearable tension: although deadly wounded by his love, it is this love which keeps him alive. 
 

4. Petrarchism in Germany
 
In Germany, Petrarch`s influence set in three centuries later – which is very late if compared to the situation in other countries. Many German 17th century poets (Gryphius, Fleming, Hoffmannswaldau, Sibylla Schwarz and others) then made use of the ideas and forms of their Italian idol.
 
Andreas Gryphius
This consisted basically in describing something or somebody with the help of exorbitant mythological allusions as well as antithetical and hyberbolical imagery - the result being that at the end of the sonnet an abstract concept would appear. 

Markus Landshut