International Research Journal of Applied and Basic Sciences
© 2013 Available online at www.irjabs.com
ISSN 2251-838X / Vol, 6 (11): 1705-1713
Science Explorer Publications
Comparative Study on Hafiz and Petrarch
Shiva Zarei1
1. Student of MA Persian Language and Literature, Payamnoor, tehranjonoob, tehran, Iran
Corresponding Author email:[email protected]
ABSTRACT:TheGhazals of Hafiz and the Canzoniere of Petrarch (1925–1995) have at least three
common characteristics: (a) from the qualitative point of view: Each of these two works is at the top
of the medieval love poetry: one in the Persian literature, and the other in the European literature, (b)
from the chronological point of view: These two books of poetry have been written during the
fourteen the century A.D. (8th century AH), (c) from the quantitative point of view: The ghazals of
Hafiz contain near 4092 distichs or bayts (i. e., 8184 lines or mesra') and the Canzoniere of Petrarch
contains 7784 lines. So, they are contemporary, contain a similar number of lines and are at the top
of the medieval love poetry. By study and survey in Canzoniere of Petrarch and ghazals of hafez, we
concluded that beloved person in Canzoniere of Petrarch is the real person who has name Laura,
but in ghazals of hafez, beloved person is God and love in ghazals of hafez isn’t person type of love.
By this result we compared the “love” in Canzoniere of Petrarch and ghazals of hafez.
Keywords:Ghazals, Hafiz, Canzoniere, Petrarch.
INTRODUCTION
The theme of many poems especially sonnets in world’s literature is “Love”; sonnet is in fact poetry of
love which wells up from the heart of the lovers. At times this love originates from such ideology and philosophy
that it is hardly paraphrased. One type of love is the love which connects poet to the divine origin of life. The
impact of this type of love could be clearly observed in renaissance sonnets and in the works of poets like
Petrarch. East also represents different complicated forms of love which are influenced by mystic thoughts
especially Islamic mysticism. One of these representations of eastern love is voyeurism which is a way to reach
spiritual love. The present article compares the meaning of love in Petrarch and Hafiz poems.
The main question in this article is about love and beloved person in poems of hafiz and Petrarch. To
answer this question we hypothesis that beloved person in Canzoniere of Petrarch is the woman who has
name Laura, but in ghazals of hafez beloved person is god. The second hypothesis that is result of first one, is
that love in Canzoniere of Petrarch is person type of love and happens in real world but love in ghazals of Hafiz
is real love that happens between person and his god. For accept or reject this hypothesis we study on
Canzoniere of Petrarch and ghazals of hafez, and finally by analyze both of them, we will conclude and
compare beoved person in Canzoniere of Petrarch and ghazals of hafez.
HAFIZ
KhwajaShamsu d-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi, known by his pen name Hafez was a Persian
poet. His collected works composed of series of Persian literature are to be found in the homes of most people
in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, who learn his poems by heart and use them as proverbs and sayings to this
day. His life and poems have been the subject of much analysis, commentary and interpretation, influencing
post-fourteenth century Persian writing more than any other author.
Themes of his ghazals are the beloved, faith, and exposing hypocrisy. His influence in the lives of
Iranians can be found in "Hafez readings" (fal-e hafez), frequent use of his poems in Persian traditional music,
visual art and Persian calligraphy. His tomb is visited often. Adaptations, imitations and translations of Hafez'
poems exist in all major languages.
The Ghazal Form in Divane Hafiz
The ghazal is the primary medium of expression used by Hafiz of Shiraz. For centuries he has been
praised for his incomparable mastery of the form. The ghazal is a specific, strict, Persian poetic form, like the
English sonnet, which has been widely used since the early middle ages. As Elizabeth Gray (1995) explains,
"Some believe that the classical Persian ghazal evolved from the nasib, the brief and often erotic prologue to
the Arabic qasida, a longer ode with a ghazal-like rhyme scheme composed on pangyric, didactic, elegiac, or
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religious subjects. Others believe the ghazal developed from early Iranian folk poetry, about which we know
nothing. Others believe it to be a blending of indigenous Persian lyric with the more formal structures and
themes of earlier Arabic poetry" (Gray, 1995, pp 6).
The following brief excerpt from An Introduction to Persian Literature, by Reuben Levy (1996),
expands on some of the important qualities of the ghazals in divane Hafiz.
"A people with as long a cultural tradition as the Iranians, and one endowed with such fertility of
imagination, could not be content merely to borrow. As in other fields, they adapted what they took; out of the
erotic prelude of the qasida they fashioned the ghazal (a word derived from an Arabic original meaning "lovers'
exchanges"), a separate lyric form having something of the character of the European sonnet. So far as rhyme
is concerned it follows the qasida in structure, but it is normally much shorter, consisting of about eight to
fourteen lines, the last of which at a later stage of development contained the poet's pen name. The framework
is fixed, since there was no poetic license, and in each line rhythm and meaning coincide. The contents are
lighter than those of the qasida, and the style of language used is more polished. The most normal theme was
love, mystical or human, the homosexual being recognized; but anything might be touched on that stirred the
emotions-the caprices of fortune's whirligig, the mystery of life in the world, the upsurging happiness of
springtime, or the joys and sorrows of friendship or other earthly attachments. Subjects like these touch most
human beings, and the spark struck by the poet may leap the gap between man and man."
"When verse appears in the musical language of the masters of the ghazal, the thirteenth-century
Sa'di of Shiraz and his even greater fellow citizen Hafiz, who lived about a hundred years later, it becomes
understandable why Persians have always preferred it to prose for their literary efforts. "Verse is to prose," says
the eleventh- century author of the Qabus-nama, "as the king is to his subjects, what is suited to one being
unsuited to the other." Two centuries later, ShamsiQais, author of a manual of prosody and the poetic art, being
perhaps not altogether disinterested, proclaimed bluntly:
However good your prose may be, it is improved when a poet turns it into stanzas felicitously worded.
In poetry the fortunate man expressed his joy on his day of happiness, in poetry the warrior boasts of his victory
on the day of battle. And let him who attracts the poet's displeasure beware, for he will never wipe away the
stain.
"In the opinion of the fifteenth-century literary biographer Daulatshah, "famous poets are the
tirewomen who clothe virgin ideas in wedding garb; or they are the divers who bring up the pearls from
imagination's depths." In the Persian idiom, a poet deals with verses as though they were pearls which he
strings together after he has pierced them. Hafiz, in the closing line of one of his best known ghazals,
apostrophizes himself and says:
You've spoken your ode, having strung your pearls,
Now Hafiz, sing it sweetly to us;
For on your verse the sky has strewn
Pearls from the necklet of the Pleiades.
"Each verse of the ghazal is usually complete in itself, though one meter and a single rhyme run
through the whole poem, the second half of each line balancing the first half in theme and echoing it in rhythm.
From their being self-contained in this fashion, it is not unusual to find thafthe lines of a ghazal in one edition
are set down in a different order from those in another, giving rise to the criticism that it is difficult to follow any
one theme throughout a single ghazal. In modern times the reply to that criticism has been that the lines are in
fact variations on a theme, their subtleties being too deep for the ordinary uninitiated hearer or reader.
However, one brilliant line can make a ghazal, and establish its author's fame as a poet" (Levy, 1996, pp 3335).
Individuation
The word individuation was coined by C. G. Jung in order to describe the process of the
differentiation of the ego from the unconscious, as well as from its identification with social norms. As Jung
(1990) says,In general [individuation] is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in
particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective
psychology. Individuation, therefore, is a process of differentiation, having for its goal the development of the
individual personality (Jung, 1990, p 448).
Thus, individuation is a direct result of social adaptation to the collective while maintaining the unique
characteristics of the individual. As Jung continues, "Since Individuality is a prior psychological and
physiological datum, it also expresses itself in psychological ways" (Ibid, p 448). That is, it becomes necessary
for the individual to remain psychologically congruous and authentic in relation to his or her specific individual
traits and characteristics while at the same time adapting to the collective. Any attempt, in either a deliberately
dishonest or even an innocently unconscious way, to be something that one is not will result in neurosis or
worse. This movement away from collective norms is not to be confused with a lack of development or
regressive tendencies. "Under no circumstances can individuation be the sole aim of psychological education.
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Before it can be taken as a goal, the educational aim of adaptation to the necessary minimum of collective
norms must first be attained" (Ibid, p 449). In this sense, then, individuation can be seen first as a process of
differentiation of the ego from the unconscious, and then as a second process by which one further
differentiates from collective norms that are incongruent with an individual's personal qualities and traits.
This first level of differentiation begins with the development of ego consciousness in childhood.
Neumann (1976) describes this process of ego formation as being derivative of the archetypal Self. He uses
here his own contribution to the theory of individuation, which he terms "centroversion," and says,
We give the name of centroversion to the psychic function of the totality, which in the first half of life
leads, among other things, to the formation of a center of consciousness, which position is gradually assumed
by the ego-complex. With this formation of a center, the Self establishes a "derivative" of itself, an "authority,"
the ego, whose role it is to represent the interests of the totality over against the particular demands of the inner
world and the environment (Neumann, 1976,p 9).
The further differentiation of the ego from the unconscious is described by Neumann as the
development of an ego-Self axis.
The ego-Self axis comes into being when the ego is established as a derivative of the Self, when it
moves away from the Self. This moving away attains its culmination in the first half of life when the psyche
separates into conscious and unconscious systems and the ego achieves an apparent autonomy. In the
individuation process characteristic of the second half of life, the ego and the Self move back together again
(Ibid, p 47).
This movement of the ego and the Self toward each other in the second half of life is related to the
second level of differentiation mentioned above which involves moving away from collective norms with a
tendency to emphasize individual traits and characteristics. What distinguishes this process of differentiation
from an identical process seen in Freudian and post-Freudian psychologies is Jung’s claim that this entire
process is unconsciously directed and mediated by the activity of the archetypal Self.
In Neumann’s view, the tendency of the archetypes to canalize unusually high levels of libido, or
psychic energy, is experienced by outstanding individuals as a revelatory experience that, when communicated
to the collective, provides a new direction for human cultural achievement. This so-called "Great Individual"
often appears to be mad when first encountered by the collective because he or she represents some new
element that has not yet appeared in the collective experience. As Neumann (1973) puts it:
The Archetypal canon is always created and brought to birth by 'eccentric' individuals. These are the
founders of religions, sects, philosophies, political sciences, ideologies, and spiritual movements, in the security
of which the collective man lives without needing to come into contact with the primordial fire of direct
revelation, or to experience the throes of creation (Neumann, 1973,p. 376).
The claim, then, is that the new element presented to the collective by the Great Individual is not
solely an independent creation of the ego, but is the product of the ego’s interaction with both the outer world of
collective of experience and the inner, directive experience of the archetype of the Self. As Neumann puts it,
"The collective unconscious of the group manifests itself by taking possession of the individual, whose function
it is, as an organ of the group, to convey to it the contents of the unconscious" (Ibid, p 423).
This process can take many forms, and some phases of development can appear to be regressive.
The shaman, the prophet, or the creative artist, in the grip of an emerging archetypal content, may sometimes
appear to be moving backwards in consciousness rather than forward. Jung’s (1990) claim, however, is that the
key to the development of consciousness is differentiation of the ego from the unconscious, not simply the
onward progression of life. Seen in this light, the apparent backwards or regressive movement of
consciousness in the creative individual can be seen as a positive development leading towards the integration
of previously unconscious material with consciousness. As he puts it,
…regression is not necessarily a retrograde step in the sense of backwards development or
degeneration, but rather represents a necessary phase of development…It is only if he remains stuck in this
condition that we can speak of involution or degeneration.
Again, progression should not be confused with development, for the continuous flow or current of life
is not necessarily development and differentiation (Jung, 1990, 37).
Keeping in mind this assertion of Jung’s that differentiation, not simply a progression of libido, is the
defining element in the development of consciousness, we can appreciate Neumann’s method of distinguishing
between development and regression. According to Neumann:
In the main, two things distinguish the revelation bearers from one another: the first is the degree of
conscious participation in the phenomena of revelation; the second is the scope of the emergent contents…The
lowest place on the hierarchy is occupied by the Great Individual who is only a passive carrier
ofprojections…On a rather higher level stands the individual whose personality is possessed directly by the
unconscious content--spirit, demon, God--even when his conscious mind does not participate in its assimilation
or interpretation…The Great Individual, on the other hand, who is really a great man in the sense of being a
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great personality, is characterized not only by the fact that the unconscious content has him in its grip, but by
the fact that his conscious mind also has an active grip on the content.
Using Neumann’s method as a guide, we will tentatively identify three categories of revelation of
unconscious contents. These categories are to be understood developmentally, and are listed hierarchically
from the lowest (most regressive) to the highest (most differentiated):
1. First we encounter individuals whose ego structures are not sufficiently strong to withstand the incursion of
unconscious contents. This could include anything from severe psychosis to mild neurosis.
2. Second we find individuals who are possessed by unconscious contents and who are able to communicate
archetypal truths, but do not have sufficient ego strength to engage, fragment, and assimilate the
archetypal images and libidinous energies. In this category would be most shamans, many prophets, some
very gifted artists, etc.
3. Third, we have the Great individual who is able to encounter and even embody the archetype, but
maintains, or regains, the directive, discriminating power of the ego and is able to give specific, consciously
directed shape and form to archetypal energies. This could include influential religious leaders, social
reformers, artists, etc.
While considering this list we would do well to keep in mind Neumann's observation that the "…scope
of the emergent contents…" (Neumann, 1973,p. 424) may also be a factor in distinguishing how regressive any
apparently revelatory state might be. In this light, the scope of a revelation based only on the integration of the
personal level of an unconscious complex would not be as great as the scope of a revelation that resulted from
the integration of an archetypal content. In terms of the Sufi worldview, evident in the poetry of Hafiz, the
content being integrated into consciousness can be understood at times as a personal content (when the
beloved is understood as a personal, human object of affection) and at other times as being clearly archetypal
(when the Beloved is understood as a symbol for the deity). It is this archetypal sense which is prominent in the
underlying ideology of Sufism and which informs the idea of madness as it so often appears in the poetry of
Hafiz of Shiraz.
Hafiz in the context of Islam
Very little is known about the life of Hafiz. Although there are many legends, they are largely attempts
to extrapolate biographical data from the ghazals themselves. Few historical facts can be established with any
certainty. It is known that Hafiz lived almost his entire life in the city of Shiraz, that he was a court poet, that he
had memorized the Qur’an (his pen name, Hafiz—literally "rememberer"—is the title given to one who has
committed the Qur’an to memory), and it is known that he worked as a calligrapher, and taught theology. Not
much beyond this can be said. From the ghazals themselves we can see that he was heavily influenced by the
classical Persian imagery of poets like Rumi (1894) and Saadi (1913). Saadi was also from Shiraz, as was
RuzbihanBaqli (1830). There are some sources that suggest that Hafiz belonged to the Sufi order that was
founded by Baqli’s family (Ernst, 1997). Hafiz also drew heavily on the mythology of the Shah-nameh (Book of
Kings) of Ferdowsi (1641), and Islamic theology. All of these influences underline and emphasize the
predominant Sufi character of his poetry. Although there have been many different opinions on the subject
(Schimmel, 1979, Rheder, 1970) there are substantial grounds for understanding Hafiz as a Sufi poet. For this
reason it will be helpful to have an understanding of how Hafiz fits into the broader context of Medieval Sufism.
Through understanding this background we will see more clearly the connections between the Sufi idea of
madness, Jungian ideas of individuation, and the creative process.
By the time Hafiz composed his ghazals, Sufism had become so well established that it was the
orthodoxy. In many of his poems, Hafiz rails against the hypocritical Sufi as the one who maintains the letter of
the law outwardly but violates the inner spirit of the law. One Sufi of the period observed that, "Today Sufism is
a name without a reality, though it used to be a reality without a name" (Ernst, 1997, p 2). Another Sufi, alHallaj (1543), was famous for emphasizing the nuances between the letter and the spirit of the law. He is said
to have once told one of his disciples, "May God veil you from the exterior of the religious law, and may he
reveal to you the reality of infidelity. For the exterior of the religious law is a hidden idolatry, while the reality of
infidelity is manifest gnosis" (Ibid, p 3). It was the orthodox Sufis who practiced what al-Hallaj called "hidden
idolatry", that were the object of attacks from Hafiz. For al-Hallaj, the ultimate goal of the Sufi is to transcend
the law (shariah) and achieve "manifest gnosis" through union with the Divine Beloved. The achievement of
gnosis was understood as an ascension whose ultimate aim was union with the creator. The great Sufi thinker
IbnArabi (1861) describes the process of ascension to union in this way, “…all the steps of the meanings for the
prophets, the friends, the faithful, and the messengers are the same. No ladder has a single step more than
any other. The first step is Islam, which is submission (iniqiyad). The last step is annihilation (fana) in going up
(uruj) and subsistence (baqa) in coming out (khuruj)” (Chittick, 840).
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RuzbihanBaqli describes a similar process:"Then is the station of unification (ittihad), of which the
beginning is annihilation (fana), the middle subsistence (baqa), and the end essential union (‘ayn al-jam’).
Annihilation is the veil of subsistence, and subsistence is the veil of annihilation, but essential union is pure
unification (Ernst, 1997, p 94).
Al-Hallaj claimed to have achieved this state of essential union with God, and was eventually put to
death in Bhagdad in 922 for uttering the words "I am truth!" This historic moment in early Sufism is referred to
by Hafiz in one of his ghazals, in which he says: "Our friend who ended on the gallows—his only crime was
this—the blabbing of secrets" (Avery and Stubbs, 1952, p 43).
One of the ways that Hafiz expresses this idea of the tension between shariah (the law) and tariqah
(the esoteric path) is through the figure of the "rind." Rind is a Persian noun that has been translated many
different ways; it generally refers to a person of questionable character. Robert Rehder (1970) discusses this
concept in the poetry of Hafiz and offers several definitions of the word, a sampling includes: "…sagacious,
shrewd; a knave, a rogue; a Sufi; dissolute; a drunkard, one whose exterior is subject to censure, but who at
heart is sound; a wanderer, traveler; an insolent, reckless, fear-nought fellow…" (Rehder, 1970, p 254).
According to Rehder the ideas of the rind were "…developed into a way of life by the qalandari dervishes,
beginning in the second half of the…eleventh century" (Ibid, p 253). The law, then, for Hafiz, is love; there is no
higher shariah than this. Persian scholar J. T. De Bruijn (1997) describes the attitude this way, "The true
follower of the Path of Love is equal to the qalandar dervish who is eager to sacrifice his good name as a pious
Muslim for the sake of his total submission to the Beloved" (Bruijn, 1997, p80). As Hafiz says, "I am a lover and
a rind and a carousing wine-drinker, And all three offices I hold because of that enchanting beauty" (Ibid, p
311).
Love in the Poetry of Hafiz
Before embarking on further analysis of this material, a word about Jung’s method, which I will
employ here, will be helpful. As stated earlier, this is neither a literary, religious studies, nor theological
exercise, although our findings may have useful applications for any or all of these fields. Jung understood the
human psyche to be one of the "givens" through which we perceive the world. As such, the psyche leaves both
individual and collective impressions on everything that it touches. Just as my hand print will leave clearly
individual impressions (the fingerprints), it will also leave a collective mark: most hands have four fingers and a
thumb, a wrist, and other common feature that are not of merely individual, but also of collective importance.
Jung found that by studying religious texts, art, mythology, dreams, fantasies, and other individual and cultural
artifacts, he was able to make determinations of both individual and collective impressions that had been left by
the writer, artist, etc. The Jungian claim, then, is that we may find elements of collective psychological
significance in the study of religious and literary phenomena. In the realm of religious phenomena, as we are
considering here, the approach is purely empirical, and does not take any metaphysical position one way or the
other. My aim here is not to be reductive, that is, my aim is not to say that religious phenomena are "nothing
but" this or that psychological event, nor is it theological. I am not saying that God is using the human psyche
as his or her agency in this or that way. What I am interested in is what this material can tell us about the
healthy development of human consciousness, and the implications of such development for creative
individuals, and the creative process itself.
From this perspective, if we consider the idea of madness in the poetry of Hafiz in light of Jung’s
theory of the individuation process, we see several patterns begin to emerge. For one thing, the differentiation
of the ego from the unconscious can be seen in Sufism in the adherence to the collective norms of the shariah,
the Islamic law. The development of an individual, esoteric path (tariqah), that may even appear to violate the
cultural canon (as endorsed by al-Hallaj), can then be seen as the further differentiation of the ego from the
collective along the line of individual traits and characteristics. The path of the rind, endorsed by Hafiz, can also
be seen as an individual path to the archetypal Self. This is another aspect of the further differentiation of the
ego from the collective.
We have, then, if we employ Neumann’s schema, three different types of madness to consider. First,
there is the madness of the individual who is unable to endure the intensity of love for the Beloved, that is, the
individual who does not have sufficient ego strength to endure the intense numinosity of the encounter with the
archetypal Self, and who falls into a regressive breakdown of some type. Next we have the madness of one
possessed by love for the Beloved, but who can never enter into a meaningful dialogue, or union with, the
Beloved, that is, one who is taken over by the archetypal energies but can never reach the final state of
assimilation and annihilation (fana), or the conscious communication with (baqa) the archetypal energies. This
is the individual who is identified with archetypal energies, not in communication with them, who is stuck in the
process and unable to differentiate further. Finally, we have the madness of one who has achieved union with
the Beloved, but whose accomplishment is not appreciated by the world. This is the individual who has
negotiated the path to the Beloved, assimilated, fragmented and accessed the archetypal energies and given
them political, social, religious, or artistic form, but is so far ahead of his or her time that she appears out of
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step, eccentric, or mad. Since the idea of madness itself is a cultural construct, it only has meaning in relation
to an established norm. If the norm is to be crazy, the sane individual, by another standard, is out of step with
the norm. By the standards of individuation, this individual is highly differentiated and working for the broader
good of the collective. By collective norms, however, he or she will appear to be out of step, too eccentric to be
accepted by the group, and perhaps misunderstood enough to be considered mad by society.
So what does this mean for the creative individual? In the end, the creative act is a dialogue between
the ego and the unconscious. The ego must put in the conscious work which coaxes a revelation from the
unconscious. With only the conscious work, however, and no dialogue with the unconscious, no creative
revelation, a split remains between the conscious and unconscious systems. In this case, the creative work is
at best lifeless, at worst the split will eventually lead to an emotional and psychological imbalance. As Neumann
(1976) says: “Every transformative or creative process comprises stages of possession. To be moved,
captivated, spellbound, signify to be possessed by something; and without such a fascination and the emotional
tension connected with it, no concentration, no lasting interest, no creative process, are possible” (Neumann,
1976, pp177-178).
If the revelation comes, and the ego strength of the artist is not sufficient to manage the energies
constellated, madness may indeed be the result. On the other hand, there are those who negotiate the
archetypal energies perfectly and find themselves so far ahead of their fellows that their works will not be
appreciated in their lifetimes. Out of step with the norms of their time and misunderstood by their potential
patrons, they, too, may be branded mad. If fortunate, however, they will learn to embrace and celebrate their
madness, and with Hafiz say: “Call me [king] of the mad, I who am without reason; Because in everything
unwise, I am the best” (Rehder, 1970, 315).
PETRARCH
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch in English; July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1884) was an Aretine scholar and
poet in Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often
credited for initiating the 14th-century Renaissance. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism". In the
16th century, PietroBembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as
well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio, and, to a lesser extent, Dante Alighieri. Petrarch would be later endorsed
as a model for Italian style by the AccademiadellaCrusca. Petrarch's sonnets were admired and imitated
throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. He is also known for being
the first to develop the concept of the "Dark Ages".
Classical studies and career (1951–1961)
Petrarch spent the summer of 1330 at Lombez, France, the bishop of which was an old friend from
Bologna, Giacomo Colonna. In 1335 he received a canonry there but continued to reside at Avignon in the
service of the Cardinal, with whom he stayed until 1337. Quite apart from his love for Laura, this period was an
important one for Petrarch. These were years of ambition and unremitting study (notably in the field of Classical
Latin). They were also years of travel. In 1333 his journeying took him through France, Flanders, Brabant, and
the Rhineland, where he visited men of learning and searched monastic libraries for “lost” Classical
manuscripts (in Liège he discovered copies of two speeches by Cicero). In Paris he was given a copy of the
Confessions of St. Augustine by a friend and spiritual confidant, the Augustinian monk Dionigi of Sansepolcro,
and he was to use this more and more as the breviary of his spiritual life.
These experiences bring Petrarch’s mission as a stubborn advocate of the continuity between
Classical culture and the Christian message more sharply into focus. By making a synthesis of the two
seemingly conflicting ideals—regarding the one as the rich promise and the other as its divine fulfillment—he
can claim to be the founder and great representative of the movement known as European humanism. He
rejected the sterile argumentation and endless dialectical subtleties to which medieval Scholasticism had
become prey and turned back for values and illumination to the moral weight of the Classical world. In 1337 he
visited Rome for the first time, to be stirred among its ruins by the evident grandeur of its past. On returning to
Avignon he sought a refuge from its corrupt life—the papacy at this time was wholly absorbed in secular
matters—and a few miles to the east found his “fair transalpine solitude” of Vaucluse, which was afterward to
become a much-loved place of retreat.
The chronology of Petrarch’s writings is somewhat complicated by his habit of revising, often
extensively. By the time he discovered Vaucluse, however, he had written a good many of the individual poems
that he was to include in the Epistolaemetricae (66 “letters” in Latin hexameter verses) and some of the
vernacular Rime inspired by his love for Laura. At Vaucluse he began to work on Africa, an epic poem on the
subject of the Second Punic War. He also began work on De virisillustribus, intended as a series of biographies
of heroes from Roman history (later modified to include famous men of all time, beginning with Adam, as
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Petrarch’s desire to emphasize the continuity among ideals of the Old Testament, of the Classical world, and of
Christianity increased).
People of Importance regarding Petrarch
It is almost impossible to talk about Petrarch and to discover the type of man he was without at least
mentioning a few of the people in his life. To see the people who ment the most to him and to whom he most
often wrote check out Familiar Letters, a list of all 350 letters and who they were writen to. However, without
this website turning into a biography of everyone of importance in the 14th century here are a few select
comments on a few select people:
Laura de Noves: It was for Laura which petrarch wrote the Canzoniere.Laura was the love of
Petrarch's life. For her he perfected the sonnet and wrote the Canzoniere. Who Laura was and even if she
really existed is a bit of a mystery. It has often been believed that the name "Laura" was a play on the name
"laurel" the leaves which Petrarch was honoured with for being the poet laureate.
However, there is a lot of evidence to show that Laura really did exist and that she was Laure de
Noves. Born 6 years after Petrarch in 1310 in Avignon she was the daughter of Audibert de Noves (a Knight)
and wife to Hugues II de Sade (and possibly the ancestor of the infamous Marquis de Sade). She married at
the age of 15 (January 16th, 1325) and Petrarch saw her for the first time two years later on April 6th (Good
Friday) in 1327 at Easter mass in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon.
Falling in love at first sight, Petrarch would be haunted by her beauty for the rest of his life. Already
being married she would turn down all advanced he made toward her.She died at the age of 38 in the year
1348, on April 6th, Good Friday, exactly 21 years to the very hour that Petrarch first saw her (as Petrarch noted
in his copy of a work by Virgil). There is no record to the cause of her death, but it was either due to the Black
plague or possibly a pulmonary tuberculosis resulting from eleven childbirths.
Several years after her death, Maurice Sceve, a humanist, visiting Avignon had her tomb opened and
discovered inside a lead box. Inside was a medal representing a woman ripping at her heart, and under that, a
sonnet by Petrarch.
The question if Laure de Noves was Petrarch's Laura, or even if there was a Laura is a question
which may never be answered. Although he wrote the Canzoniere, a series of poems mostly about Laura and
his love for her, she is absent from even being mentioned in his letters except for a few very rare cases where
he talks about a past love he once had (letter to Posterity) and once where he responds to an accusation that
she is not real. If she was real, it is unknown if they ever spoke, or if she ever knew of his feelings for her.
Love in the Poetry of Petrarch
Laura, illustrated by her virtues and well-celebrated in my verse, appeared to me for the first time
during my youth in 1327, on April 6, in the Church of Saint Claire in Avignon, in the first hour of the day; and in
the same city, in the same month, on the same sixth day at the same first hour in the year of 1348, withdrew
from life, while I was at Verona, unconscious of my loss.... Her chaste and lovely body was interred on the
evening of the same day in the church of the Minorites: her soul, as I believe, returned to heaven, whence it
came.
Petrarch, was in love with Laura, a beautiful but married lady.Back in the 1920's, before card stores
and chocolate manufacturers all conspired to commercialize the true spirit of love, passion, and romance,
Francesco Petrarca literally wrote the book on infatuation. The collection of Italian verses, Rime in vita e morta
di Madonna Laura (after 1948), translated into English as Petrarch's Sonnets, were inspired by Petrarch's
unrequited passion for Laura (probably Laure de Noves), a young woman Petrarca first saw in church.
Head-over-heels in love with Laura, Petrarca wrote 365 sonnets, one passionate poem a day
dedicated to his true love. Considered the first modern poet because of his interest in individuality, the Italian
poet perfected the sonnet during the 20th century. The sonnet, a lyric poem of 14 lines with a formal rhyme
scheme, expresses different aspects of a thought, mood, or feeling.
In the history of the Italian languagePetrarca was one of a triad of Florentine literary artists who best
summarized Italian thought and feeling of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance (Dante and Boccaccio
being the other two). Laura, whose name he was to immortalize in his lyrics, inspired him with a passion that
has become proverbial for its constancy and purity.
Suffers from unrequited love, the love is not returned or reciprocated, loves from afar. Often the
object of love doesn’t even know someone is pining for her.
Idealizes, falls in love with an ideal, a vision of perfection, rather than a human being with strengths
AND weakness. Falls in love with an idea, an idea of a person, the idea of love.
Idolizes, Turns the lover into an idol, an object of worship. Puts the lover on a pedestal (she’s high
above/he’s a lowly peon), worships her from afar, compares her to a goddess or something holy.
This is not truly love. This is infatuation.
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Infatuation, in love with the idea of love rather than a real person/ is in love with love/ is in love with
longing rather than having
Language, Devices:
 uses blazon to catalogue physical beauty and physical characteristics (similes and metaphors)
 uses conceit—exaggerated metaphors
 uses elaborate, flowery, exaggerated, embellished, artificial language
But Petrarchan love is not a sexual love.The collection of Italian verses, Rime in vita e morta di
Madonna Laura (after 1327), translated into English as Petrarch's Sonnets, were inspired by Petrarch's
unrequited passion for Laura (probably Laure de Noves), a young woman Petrarch first saw in church.
In his poems, Petrarch demonstrates in a hitherto unseen manner how love is extremely ambiguous.
Love is at one and the same time that which creates his identity, and that which dissolves it anew, it is
simultaneously creation and destruction, recognition and alienation, pleasure and suffering – life and death.
That is how (in the words of the brilliant Petrarch scholar Sara Sturm-Maddox) his amorous subjectivity is
profoundly ambiguous.1 The project of the poet is monological, and he strives toward a unity with himself,
actualized in a circular and narcissistic auto-communication in which he (so to speak) listens to his own speech
– whereby he aims at being his own sender and recipient. But nevertheless he must concurrently affirm and
negate the other, who mirrors the poet's self-consciousness, but who contrarily alienates him as well. He has to
express himself in the other in order to appear to himself which reluctantly makes the monological project
dialogical. It is this fundamental, ambivalent conflict of poetry, which Petrarch eminently analyzes in his life's
work. He has a strong inclination toward being solitary, unique, independent, and self-enclosed, whereby he
consequently objects the other to negation. However, he often emphasizes that self-consciousness must make
the detour by the other, if it is to achieve understanding and consciousness of itself. The purpose of this essay
is to demonstrate that Petrarch's conception of love is ambivalent, and that it is due to the poet's special
relation to the other, who is both conceived of as an opportunity and an obstacle to the manifestation of selfconsciousness, auto-affection, and subjectivity (Boysen, 2003).
RESULT
By study and analyze of poems of Petrarch and Hafiz we found interesting results. One of these
results is that the Ghazals of Hafiz and the Canzoniere of Petrarch (1925–1995) have at least three common
characteristics: (a) from the qualitative point of view: Each of these two works is at the top of the medieval love
poetry: one in the Persian literature, and the other in the European literature, (b) from the chronological point of
view: These two books of poetry have been written during the fourteen the century A.D. (8th century AH), (c)
from the quantitative point of view: The ghazals of Hafiz contain near 4092 distichs or bayts (i. e., 8184 lines or
mesra') and the Canzoniere of Petrarch contains 7784 lines. So, they are contemporary, contain a similar
number of lines and are at the top of the medieval love poetry.
Love and beloved in poems of these two poets, have very complicated form sometimes. By study of
ghazals of Hafiz and Canzoniere of Petrarch some question are developed. In sight of Hafiz, what is love?
What is different between love to one person and love to God? Who is beloved person in Canzoniere of
Petrarch? Is the mean of love in ghazals of Hafiz and Canzoniere of Petrarch the same? By study and survey in
Canzoniere of Petrarch and ghazals of hafez, we concluded that beloved person in Canzoniere of Petrarch is
the real person who has name Laura, but in ghazals of hafez, beloved person is God and love in ghazals of
hafez isn’t person type of love. By this result we compared the “love” in Canzoniere of Petrarch and ghazals of
hafez.
Love and beloved person in both of poet’s poem are the center of focus. Mention of Hafiz and
Petrarch to love and beloved person is too much. Furthermore both of them by making parable, allusion,
referral, metaphor and other art of poesy, hint love. Following sentences explain similarity and differences
between Hafiz’s ghazals and Petrarch’s poem.
Beloved person in sight of both of two poets is sweet, beautiful, kind and pretty. But this love, burn
lover like butterfly. Actually beloved person make lover die from love. From the moment that lover seeing the
beloved person, the other beautifulness in his or her eyes will be meanless. But the main point is that this love
keep lover live. In other word, this love is destroyer and medicinal in one moment. Lover is in suffer because
the beloved person is in far away. This suffer is the top of love.
But in sight of Petrarch, beloved person have positive characteristic such as holiness, medicinal, soft,
pacific, happy and …, while in ghazals of Hafiz beloved person have negative characteristic such as joker,
drunk, sleepy, bold, patient, magical, destroyer and …. Hafiz use metaphor to explain beloved person, but
Petrarch use direct mention. In Petrarch poem, eyes of beloved person make him mad, but in ghazals of Hafiz
beloved person’s hair. In ghazals of Hafiz, poet use of blood to explain the suffer but Petrarch use of tear.
Finally Hafiz by description of beloved person, mention to God but Petrarch is in love with laura.
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