The Essential Petrarch by Francesco Petrarca

The Essential Petrarch Reviews

• 
  Rachel

  Pretty good writing, but Petrarch is kinda an asshole...
  
  The conflict between his vernacular works—surrounding love, lust, and Laura—and his Latin works—surrounding philosophy, mortality, and immortality—is kind of hypocritical. He's called one of the authors at the "threshold of modernity", and perhaps that is because he accepts his hypocrisy of mortal want and eternal philosophy. He wants even though he knows what he supposedly needs. Secretum seems to be totally useless—here's all this info from Augustine, your biggest Christian idol, but go on, ignore him and continue as you were.
  
  Petrarch is misogynistic, blaming Laura for all of his problems in the traditional way. Despite her rejection of his advances, it is her fault that he pines and whines. He was the god of the "friend-zoned". I find it difficult to sympathize at all with him, I do much more with the lady he stalked.
  
  But I guess legacy and stuff. It's weird to read his "Letter to Posterity" because here we are, and there he was. Despite him saying he didn't want the laurel of glory, and then taking it back, then saying he didn't... somehow we kinda give it to him anyway.
  
  Meh. Petrarch. Successful sestinas are cool, I guess.
• 
  Mike

  I have read a couple different translations of Petrarch (Bishop, Auslander, Bergin, Young, etc.), but Hainsworth's translations are my favorite. They are crisp and melodic. His notes are excellent, and the inclusion of some letters in this edition was nice. The only downside to this edition is that he doesn't translate all the sonnets. I read this side-by-side with the Young translation just to read all the sonnets, but I preferred the Hainsworth.