There Are Doors

James B. Jordan · 22 May 2009, 00:17 · from 2009-May.txt.gz

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From: jbjordan4 at cox.net (James B. Jordan)
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 19:17:39 -0500
Subject: (urth) There Are Doors
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Another question is how much Petrarch there is here. Laura, you know.

 From Wikiland:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/File:Francesco_Petrarca01.jpg>
[]

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/File:Francesco_Petrarca01.jpg>
[]

Laura de Noves

On 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/April_6>April 
6, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/1327>1327, 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Good_Friday>Good 
Friday, after giving up his vocation as a priest, 
the sight of a woman called "Laura" in the church 
of Sainte-Claire 
d'<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Avignon>Avignon 
awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the 
Rime sparse ("Scattered rhymes"). Later, 
Renaissance poets who copied Petrarch's style 
named this collection of 366 poems 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Il_Canzoniere>Il 
Canzoniere ("Song Book"). Laura may have been 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Laura_de_Noves>Laura 
de Noves, the wife of Count 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//w/index.php?title=Hugues_de_Sade&action=edit&redlink=1>Hugues 
de Sade (ancestor of the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Marquis_de_Sade>Marquis 
de Sade). There is little definite information in 
Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she 
is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, 
dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little 
or no personal contact. According to his 
"Secretum", she refused him for the very proper 
reason that she was already married to another 
man. He channeled his feelings into love poems 
that were exclamatory rather than persuasive, and 
wrote prose that showed his contempt for men who 
pursue women. Upon her death in 1348, the poet 
finds that his 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Grief>grief 
is as difficult to live with as was his former 
despair. Later in his "Letter to Posterity", 
Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled 
constantly with an overwhelming but pure love 
affair - my only one, and I would have struggled 
with it longer had not premature death, bitter 
but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling 
flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have 
always been entirely free from desires of the 
flesh, but I would be lying if I did".

While it is possible she was an idealized or 
pseudonymous character - particularly since the 
name "Laura" has a 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Linguistics>linguistic 
connection to the poetic "laurels" Petrarch 
coveted - Petrarch himself always denied it. His 
frequent use of l'aura, as in "Erano i capei 
d'oro a l'aura sparsi" is also remarkable: for 
example, the line may both mean "her hair was all 
over Laura's body", and "the wind ("l'aura") blew 
through her hair". There is psychological realism 
in the description of Laura and Petrarch's love 
is nothing conventional - unlike some clich? 
women of 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Troubadour>troubadours 
and 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Courtly_love>courtly 
love. Her presence causes him unspeakable joy, 
but his unrequited love creates unendurable 
desires, inner conflicts between the ardent lover 
and the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Christian_mysticism>mystic 
Christian, making it impossible to reconcile the 
two, his quest for love a hopeless, endless agony.

Laura is unreachable - the few physical 
descriptions are vague, almost unpalpable as the 
love pines for, and such is perhaps the power of 
his verse, which lives off the melodies it evokes 
against the fading, diaphane image that is no 
more consistent than a ghost. 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Francesco_De_Sanctis>Francesco 
De Sanctis remarks much the same thing in his 
Storia della lera italiana, and contemporary 
critics agree on the powerful music of his verse: 
Gianfranco Contini, in a famous essay on 
Petrarch's language ("Preliminari sulla lingua 
del Petrarca". Petrarca, Canzoniere. Turin, 
Einaudi, 1964) has spoken of linguistic 
indetermination - Petrarch never rises above the 
"bel pi?" (her lovely foot): Laura is too holy to 
be painted, it is an awe-inspiring goddess. 
Sensuality and passion are rather suggested by 
the rhythm and music that shape the vague contours of the lady.

Nutria

James B. Jordan
Director, Biblical Horizons
Box 1096
Niceville, FL 32588
http://www.biblicalhorizons.com 
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