Petrarch response - Grade: A+ PDF

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Sonnet 62 Interpretation ...

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Student Professor Sandefur ENGL 2110 19 October 2017 Sonnet 62- Assignment 3 In Sonnet 62, Petrarch is having a conversation with God about his love for Laura and his pursuit of her. He is asking for forgiveness and reflecting on how his desire for her goes against what God would want for him. This explains why there is a large amount of dichotomy displayed in this poem. One of the first displays of dichotomy is in the first line of the first stanza, where he describes his time lusting for Laura as “each lost day”. He goes on to say that he spent “each night raving with that fierce desire”, which emphasizes how deep his lust for her was and how it consumes him. In the next stanza, he declares that he will turn away from this raging desire for her into God’s light. He also claims that he will take on “another life and deeds more truly fair”, which implies that his lust for her is not in God’s will. The last two lines of the second stanza were the most important ones in the sonnet, which read “So having spread to no avail the snare My bitter foe (Satan, according to the footnotes) might hold it in despite.” These lines caught my attention because I took it as Petrarch referring to Laura and his unrequited love for her a trap set up by the devil. Nevertheless, this is considered true in multiple Christian teachings. The rule is that you are not to become caught up in earthly affairs and desires, as it takes away the glory from God. It is also commonly believed that these earthly affairs and desires are constructed by Satan in order to distract us.

In the last stanza, Petrarch asks God to pity his unfortunate situation of lusting for this earthly woman. He then asks for God to redirect his “straying thoughts to a nobler place”, which shows that he is too deeply infatuated with this woman to redirect his own thoughts, so he is calling on God to change him. This shows Petrarch’s aspiration to be a godly man, and his awareness that his love for Laura is holding him back from being that man. The last line of the stanza reads “Show them this day you were on Calvary”, which confused me at first but I eventually came up with my own interpretation. Now this could be wrong, but I perceived this line as Petrarch asking God to show his unworthy thoughts that God has also been in a difficult situation before, as he was at Calvary. This is Petrarch’s way of comparing his current situation to the situation of Calvary and stating that he can overcome it just as God did....