Francesco Petrarch

Italian Poet
 Francesco Petrarch
Francesco Petrarch (1304-74) was
responsible for establishing certain
ideas about love-relationships. He
wrote more than 300 sonnets
(poems) addressed to an idealized
lady named Laura, with whom he
had never even had a conversation.
These sonnets were enormously
popular, and poets in Shakespeare's
day were still using Petrarch's
sonnets as models. One key
Petrarchan notion is that the lover's
love for a beautiful woman is not
returned and he suffers as if from a
bad flu (freezes and burns).
 Question:
Can you think of any
movies/songs/stories
where the hero is in
love with a girl who
doesn’t know he
exists?
 One more thing about Petrarch…
Petrarch, along with
other poets, often
referred to love in
terms of religion.
This convention is
still around as well.
Can you think of any
ways in which
people in love still
talk this way?