There is a rich literature on Petrarch, his biblical and theological
knowledge, and his use of devotional images and metaphors in the Rerum
Vulgarium Fragmenta. His own relationship with belief changed during
his lifetime, from youthful assent to a deepening theological
sensibility in his middle and later years. The complexity of the
psychology of the lover in the RVF gave rise among later poets to many
variations on Petrarchan devotional topoi, some of them stressing the
struggle of the lover to submit to God's will (a struggle Petrarch also
endured, read his dialogue the "Secretum"), others immersing themselves
in the strictly formal problems of the sonnet (the hundreds of
"Petrarchists" on the following century and a half). Malipiero in the
1530s, thinking the fashion for the Petrachan sonnet too worldly,
reworked the poems of the RVF as the "Petrarcha Spirituale." Both the
psychological complexity of Petrarch's poems and their tempting formal
intricacy as subjects for imitation drew later poets, both in Italy and
abroad, to refract Petrarch in their own ways, often producing a
Christianity to "aery thinness beat." It's important to keep in mind
that Petrarch's Christianity was not a matter of choice as a modern
might see it -- it was part of the air he breathed, as well as
constituting his social world and functioning as a potential source of
economic support (read his biography by Morris Bishop, or the several
volumes by E.H. Wilkins). You might want to take a prowl through the
"Spenser Encyclopedia" to pursue your topic. Germaine Warkentin
--
***********************************************************************
Germaine Warkentin // English (Emeritus)
VC 205, Victoria College (University of Toronto),
73 Queen's Park Crescent East, Toronto, Ont. M5S 1K7, CANADA
[log in to unmask] (fax number on request)
***********************************************************************