The Unrequited Love of Petrarch Essay Example

Laura can be considered a great thing.

Although Petrarch recognizes Laura as beautiful, he also informs his audience of the suffering she causes, when he writes, “I'd sing of Love in such a novel fashion /that from her cruel side I would draw by force /a thousand sighs a day, kindling again /in her cold mind a thousand high desires” (l. 1- 4). Petrarch hopes for a perfect love (that includes Laura), however because of Laura’s “cruel side” (l. 2), this perfect love can never happen. Petrarch suffers the pain of heartache and rejection, but always keeps his hopes high for Laura to feel compassion and sympathy for him.

Instead in wallowing in his pain and rejection, Petrarch chooses to write about the deep love and attraction he feels for Laura. Petrarch says, “All this I'd do because I do not mind /my discontentment in this one short life, /but glory rather in my later fame” (l. 12-14). In saying this, Petrarch tells his readers that he will bear through all of the pain and humiliation in order to gain fame. Petrarch does not mind the rejection from his one true love, if he can gain notoriety and his legacy can live on through his sonnets.

In “Alone, and Lost in Thought, the Desert Glade” Petrarch finds the pain of Laura’s rejection easier to bear when no one notices him. The “desert glade” (l. 1) symbolizes a state of isolation, that Petrarch welcomes with open arms. Petrarch does not want to be in the company of other people and rather hide from the "prying eye" (l. 6) of the world. Petrarch enjoys his loneliness and writes that he

is, “Anxious to shun the print of human tread” (l. 4). Petrarch has given up hope on his love for Laura and no longer wants to suffer his pain publicly.

Petrarch tries to conceal his utter misery from others. When Petrarch writes, “That well I think each mountain, wood and plain,/ And river knows, what I from man conceal” (l. 9-10), he is telling his readers that the only one to witness his heartache now is the nature around him. The trees, mountains, and rivers see everything that he does not let other humans see. Petrarch seems to be ashamed and humiliated of his unrequited love for Laura. Petrarch writes, “Wherever I wander, love attends me still,/ Soft whispring to my soul, and I to him” (l. 3-14).

He says that even in his aloneness, he still has love, which never leaves him. This may be able to be considered a bad thing because the fact that his love is never returned is what causes him the most pain. Petrarch does not want his agony and misery over Laura’s refusal to return his love to be exposed to the public. In “I’d Sing of Love in Such a Novel Fashion” and “Alone, and Lost in Thought, the Desert Glade” Petrarch completely changes his point of view of experiencing his pain of rejection in the public eye.

In “I’d Sing of Love in Such a Novel Fashion” Petrarch has hope that someday Laura will fall in love with him, just as he did her, because of this Petrarch did not mind the suffering that his unrequited love brings. In fact, Petrarch wants to gain fame and notoriety through the

pain that he feels. However, In “Alone, and Lost in Thought, the Desert Glade” Petrarch rather suffer his pain in private. Petrarch changes his mind because as time passed he came to a realization that Laura will never love him back.

Now that he has come to this realization he just wants to be alone, he does not even care if no one reads his sonnets and he never becomes famous in his afterlife. In “I’d Sing of Love in Such a Novel Fashion” and “Alone, and Lost in Thought, the Desert Glade” Petrarch changes his mind about gaining fame and notoriety from the sonnets he wrote about his unrequited love. Everyday, people change their minds. College students are known to change their minds about their major.

This does not make them hypocritical; all it means is that once they experienced the actual class, they realize that it is not for them or that it is not what they expected. In the morning after waking up, people try on multiple outfits because they change their minds about what to wear. People change their plans after work or school, simply because their tired or something else came up. People change their minds frequently, because the things they experience, makes them see the things in their life differently.