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From: Michael Vik
Date: 9/12/2003
Time: 3:05:13 PM
Remote Name: 199.44.215.199
I don't know if Petrarch was really subject to the whims of authority. After all, he seemed to be as content in the wilderness in his travels as much as in the city, and conventional authority is much weaker outside the urban center. If he suffered from any injustice from powers greater than his own, the oppression would come from within, not from the outside (this has already been mentioned before, I know). He could be a very self-reliant person but even the toughest people have hearts and hopes. His hopes got crushed. In any case, he still continued on with his life, and he turned his life's worst defeat (his inability to be close to the one he loved)into a victory, a career. That is admirable. On the other hand, I believe he was an obssesive lecher who should have written poems on a different subject from time to time, since he wrote around 400 on Laura and only Laura. He could be viewed as a ladies' man if he wrote one poem for her; instead, he wrote 400. Scary. :(