I. Lileeva

The greatest poet, he himself valued only the poetry of the ancients. Francesco Petrarch was known to his contemporaries as a brilliant expert on antiquity. Then, in the 14th century, the Renaissance began in Italy. Old medieval laws and ideas were broken, people were freed from the oppression of the “spiritual dictatorship” of the Catholic Church. The new worldview was based on the humanism of ancient culture. Francesco Petrarch is rightfully considered one of the first humanists of the Renaissance who expressed new, progressive ideas, a new attitude towards life and man.
Petrarch devoted all his time to the study of ancient culture, searched for, deciphered, translated, interpreted the manuscripts of the authors of Ancient Rome, and he himself brilliantly wrote poems in Latin. Particularly interesting is his treatise “On Contempt for the World” - a kind of confession of a restless soul. And for his Latin poem “Africa,” which describes the feat of the ancient Roman commander Scipio Africanus, Petrarch was crowned with a laurel wreath on the Capitol as the first poet of Italy. But the court of descendants very often differs from the court of contemporaries. The poem “Africa” has long been forgotten, but Petrarch’s immortal fame was brought to him by his poems in Italian, written “On the Life of Madonna Laura” and “On the Death of Madonna Laura,” poems that made up the famous collection “Canzoniere” (Book of Songs).
On April 6, 1327, in Avignon, in the south of France, in the church of St. Clare, an Italian young monk, who was in the retinue of the powerful Cardinal Colonna, saw the young woman Laura for the first time. Laura's beauty made an irresistible impression on Francesco Petrarca, and although he only saw her from afar a few times, her image sank deeply into the poet's heart. For twenty-one years, until Laura's death, Petrarch lived with love for her, dreams of his ideal beloved, and then mourned her death for a long time. The image of Laura was always with him: both in his travels through France and Italy, and in his solitude in the mountain town of Vaucluse, where he lived for four years, indulging in philosophical reflection. Petrarch wrote these poems for himself and did not attach much importance to them.
The most interesting thing in “Canzoniere” is the image of the poet himself, whose feelings, thoughts, mental turmoil, experiences, “outbursts of a sorrowful heart” constitute the content of most of the poems. Petrarch reveals with amazing depth the diverse, complex and contradictory world of human love experiences. This brought him fame as a classic singer of love.
The main poetic genre of Petrarch's book is the sonnet - a poem of 14 lines with a certain rhyme order. Petrarch made the difficult form of the sonnet flexible, capable of expressing great feelings and thoughts. A. S. Pushkin wrote:

The stern Dante did not despise the sonnet;
Petrarch poured out the heat of love in him.

In addition to sonnets, “Canzoniere” also contains songs (canzones). In the famous canzone “My Italy,” the voice of Petrarch is heard - a citizen, a patriot: he mourns the fragmentation of Italy, is indignant at the incessant internecine wars. Addressing his canzone, the poet exclaims: “Go and demand: “Peace!” peace! peace!
Petrarch, continuing Dante, did a lot to create the Italian literary language.
A humanist, a thinker who defended the greatness and dignity of the human personality, a singer of love, a poet who created poems with amazing depth of insight into the inner world of man, Petrarch has long been known and loved by Russian readers.

Italian lawyer (by education), poet, one of the founders of the humanistic culture of the Renaissance.

The future poet was born into the family of a notary - a friend Dante.

Francesco Petrarca knew ancient authors well, especially Cicero , Virgil And Seneca looked for their unknown manuscripts, studied texts, often quoted them and even wrote letters to them as if they were his friends... Admiring ancient authors, he developed his own literary style.

“Raised in the Christian religion, Petrarch sought a compromise between it and pagan philosophy, between faith and knowledge.

All his work bears the stamp of this duality. He saw the ultimate goal of his own efforts in overcoming the traditional opposition between the Christian faith and ancient culture. […]

Petrarch became one of the first collectors of ancient manuscripts (I looked for them during my travels around Europe, and often made this kind of request to friends and acquaintances). His library, unique for those times, included the works of Plato (Timaeus and several dialogues unknown in Latin translations), Homer (Iliad and Odyssey), Aristotle, Horace, Virgil, Cicero (most of his speeches and dialogues were discovered by Petrarch) , Quintilian, Titus Livy, Pliny the Elder, Suetonius, Apuleius, Palladius, Chalcidia, Cassiodorus, as well as Augustine, Martial Capella, Eustachius, Abelard, Dante and other authors. The circle of reading of Petrarch is even wider - in addition to those listed, these are works Ovid, Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, Persia, Juvenal, Lucan, Statius, Claudiana, Plautus, Terence, Sallust, Flora, Eutropius, Justina, Orosia, Valeria Maxima, Macrobius, Vitruvius, Pomponia Mela, Boethius. The most revered and beloved were Virgil, Cicero, and Seneca.

Engaged in a thorough study of ancient manuscripts, Petrarch compared and verified various lists, discovered errors and distortions, thus laying the foundations of humanistic philology.
The work he began to restore the complete corpus of ancient literature in original texts was largely carried out by humanists of the 15th century.”

Bragina L.M., Italian humanism. Ethical teachings of the XIV-XV centuries, M., “Higher School”, 1977, p. 80.

“Through the efforts of Petrarch, the process of restoring incomparably broader continuity of ties with antiquity, characteristic of the Renaissance, was begun. A passionate collector of ancient manuscripts, their first interpreter and textual critic, Petrarch laid the foundations of Renaissance classical philology. His library included works of more than 30 ancient authors, including those forgotten or little-known in the Middle Ages, and was the largest in Europe at that time.

The attitude of the first humanist to the Middle Ages was different: he saw in the previous centuries the era of “barbarian domination,” the decline of education, the deterioration of the Latin language, and undeserved neglect of the pagan culture of antiquity. Petrarch criticized scholasticism for its inability to provide satisfactory answers to eternal questions about the nature of man and his purpose. He also negatively assessed the very structure of scholastic knowledge, in which the quadrivium (mathematical sciences) pushed into the background the humanities that were so important for understanding human nature.

Petrarch saw the urgent task in turning the entire system of knowledge towards the study of the “human” and therefore assigned the main role to philology, rhetoric, and moral philosophy.

He considered it especially important to restore the ancient basis precisely in these areas of knowledge, to build them on the study of a wide range of classical texts - the works of Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Sallust and many other ancient authors. Petrarch and the works of the church fathers read in a new way, first of all Augustine, highly valued their classical education."

Bragina L.M., Italian humanism of the Renaissance: ideological searches, in Sat.: Humanistic thought of the Italian Renaissance / Comp. L.M. Bragina, M., “Science”, 2004, p. 8-9.

Most famous are his numerous sonnets dedicated to Donna Laura, a woman whom he said he met in the Avignon church in 1327. He made no attempts to personally meet Laura. Laura's death gave rise to a new batch of sonnets... The poet's friend, Giovanni Boccaccio claimed that the real Laura never existed. U Petrarch there were two illegitimate children.

Naples, Rome and Paris wanted to present Petrarch wreath of the best poet (strictly speaking, at his request). The poet chose Rome.

Literary scholars believe that a detailed description in poetry of a person’s internal and contradictory experiences was a new word in the literature of that time...

I am still one of many, although I am trying with all my might to become one of the few.

Francesco Petrarca

The Italian thinker and poet Francesco Petrarca was born on July 20, 1304 in the city of Arezzo, where his father, a notary by profession, who had once been expelled from Florence, lived for some time. In 1312, when Francesco was eight years old, his family moved to Avignon, where the papal court was then located. Petrarch spent his entire childhood in Avignon.

As a nine-year-old boy, Petrarch became interested in the sayings of Cicero, the music of his words, to whom he was introduced by his teacher, Convenevole da Prato. Later he spoke about this: “Such harmony and sonority of the words naturally captivated me, so that everything else that I read or heard seemed to me rude and not nearly as harmonious.” Undoubtedly, the writings of Cicero remained in his memory for the rest of his life.

In 1326, Petrarch took holy orders. His teachers, whose thoughts he relentlessly followed in religious matters, were only the ancient authors and founders of the early church (most of all Jerome and Augustine). Then, in 1326, Petrarch entered the Faculty of Law in Bologna, where he attended classes with his younger brother, Gherardo Petrarca.

Perhaps one day, April 6, 1327, became a turning point in the life of Francesco Petrarch. Then he met a woman whom he fell in love with for the rest of his life. She went down in history under the name Laura. Who she was is still not known for certain. Inspired by his feeling, Petrarch wrote his first sonnets, which not only entered the golden fund of the “poetic science of love,” but also became an excellent model for Petrarch’s followers and imitators and remain so to this day. It is known that Francesco Petrarca was not only a brilliant thinker and philosopher, but also a poet; he is considered the founder of Italian national poetry.

In 1330, Petrarch completed his studies and entered the service of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna, which gave him, the son of an exile, both a certain social position and the opportunity to play a prominent role in the life of his contemporary world.

At the beginning of 1337, Petrarch visited Rome for the first time. Later he wrote about it this way: “Rome seemed to me even greater than I expected, its ruins seemed especially great to me.” You might think that the thinker said this jokingly, but this is not at all true. Rather, Petrarch spoke about the great past of the then Roman Empire. Then the philosopher settled in the town of Vaucluse, near Avignon, where his work actually began to flourish. Petrarch's poetic creations bore fruit, and already on September 1, 1340, he received two offers to be crowned with the laurels of the first poet: the first came from the University of Paris, the second from Rome. Petrarch, on reflection, gave preference to Rome. In April 1341, Petrarch was crowned with laurels on the Capitol.

Petrarch witnessed the terrible plague, which in the 14th century killed more than a third of the population of Europe. In the Italian cities of Siena and Pisa alone, more than half of the inhabitants died. However, Petrarch himself was spared the plague.

In 1351, the Florentine commune sent Giovanni Boccaccio (a famous thinker who later became a close friend of Petrarch) to Petrarch with an official message inviting the poet to return to Florence, from where his parents were expelled, and head the university department created especially for him. Petrarch pretended to be flattered and ready to accept this offer, however, after leaving Vaucluse in 1353 and returning to Italy, he settled not in Florence, but in Milan.

In the summer of 1356, Petrarch was on an embassy to the Czech king Charles IV from the sovereign of Milan, Galeazzo Visconti.

In the spring of 1362, Francesco Petrarch, “tired of the world, of people, of affairs, tired to the extreme of himself,” went from Milan to Prague, following the triple invitation of Charles IV, but on the way he was detained by mercenary detachments ruling in Lombardy and turned to Venice, where he settled.

In Venice, Petrarch was the guest of honor. The decision of the Great Council of Venice on September 4, 1362, when the Republic accepted his plan for a public library, stated that “there was no philosopher or poet in the Christian world within the memory of man who could be compared with him.” In his will, Petrarch donated all his books to the Venetian Republic with the condition that they would become the basis of a public library built according to his plan.

According to Petrarch himself, his life was not easy. He spoke about his fate like this: “Almost my entire life was spent in wanderings. I compare my wanderings with Odysseus's; if the brilliance of his name and exploits were the same, his wanderings would not have been longer or longer than mine... it is easier for me to count the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven than all the obstacles that fortune, envious of my labors, has posed.”

Petrarch once said: “I want death to find me either praying or writing.” And so it happened. Francesco Petrarca died in Arqua on the night of July 19, 1374, just one day short of his seventieth birthday.

All of Petrarch's works were imbued with extraordinary romanticism and humanism, love for the surrounding world. Among his most famous works: the comedy “Philology”, “Canzoniere”, that is, a book of poems and songs, the heroic poem “Africa”, “Medicines for the vicissitudes of fate”, collections of sonnets “For the Life of Laura” and “For the Death of Laura”, “ The Book of Memorable Things” and the unfinished poem “Triumphs”.

Francesco Petrarch was the first great humanist, poet and citizen who was able to discern the integrity of the pre-Renaissance currents of thought and unite them in a poetic synthesis that became the program of coming European generations. With his creativity, he managed to instill in these future diverse generations of Western and Eastern Europe a consciousness - albeit not always clear, but one that became, as it were, supreme in reason and inspiration for them.

Petrarch is the founder of new modern poetry. His “Canzoniere” for a long time determined the path of development of European lyricism, becoming a kind of indisputable model. If at first for his contemporaries and closest followers in his homeland, Petrarch was a great restorer of classical antiquity, a harbinger of new paths in art and literature, then, starting in 1501, when, through the efforts of the typographer Aldo Manuzio, the Vatican Codex “Canzoniere” was made widely public, the era of the so-called began Petrarchism, not only in poetry, but also in the field of aesthetic and critical thought. Petrarchism spread beyond Italy. Evidence of this is the work of such famous poets as Gongora (in Spain), Camões in (Portugal), Shakespeare (in England), Kokhanovsky (in Poland). Without Petrarch, their lyrics would not only be incomprehensible to us, but simply impossible.

Moreover, Petrarch paved the way for his poetic heirs to understand the tasks and essence of poetry, to understand the moral and civic calling of the poet.

In the self-portrait that involuntarily arises when reading Petrarch, one striking feature is the need for love. This is both the desire to love and the need to be loved. This trait found an extremely clear expression in the poet’s love for Laura, the main subject of the sonnets and other poems that make up “Canzoniere.” An innumerable number of scientific works are devoted to Petrarch’s love for Laura. Laura is a very real figure. Love for her, as often happens in real poetry, is romantic and impetuous; towards the end of the poet’s life it somewhat subsided and almost merged with the idea of ​​heavenly, ideal love.

Another trait that the poet himself revealed in himself, for which he sometimes (especially in his declining years) castigated himself, was the love of fame. Not in the sense of simple vanity, however. Petrarch's desire for fame was closely connected with the creative impulse. This is what prompted Petrarch to take up writing to a greater extent. Over the years, this love, the love of fame, began to moderate. Having achieved unprecedented fame, Petrarch realized that it aroused much more envy in those around him than good feelings. In his “Letter to Descendants,” he writes with sadness about his crowning in Rome, and before his death he is even ready to recognize the triumph of Time over Glory.

The acquaintance of the Russian public with Petrarch was started by the Russian poet Konstantin Batyushkov, perhaps the first adherent of so-called Italianism in Russia, the author of articles about Petrarch. Batyushkov also translated one of his most famous sonnets - the 269th, and wrote an arrangement of his first canzone, which he called “Evening”. The greatest credit for introducing the work of Petrarch belongs to the poet Vyacheslav Ivanov. Perhaps, Ivanov’s main merit as a translator of Petrarch is that he, the first of the major Russian writers, approached Petrarch not “suddenly,” but fully armed with the most thorough philological and historical-cultural knowledge, while remaining a considerable poet.

Undoubtedly, Francesco Petrarch made a huge contribution to the development of philosophy and literature in general, first of all, as the founder of true humanism, which, perhaps, turned out to be what attracted followers and imitators of Petrarch in his work.

Francesco Petrarca.LXIsonnet (translation by V. Ivanov)

Blessed is that land, and that valley is bright,

Where I became a prisoner of beautiful eyes!

Blessed is the pain that's the first time

I felt it when I didn't notice it

How deeply pierced by the arrow that aimed

There is a God in my heart who secretly destroys us!

Blessed are the complaints and groans,

How I announced the dream of the oak forests,

Waking up echoing the name of Madonna!

Blessed are you that there are so many glories

They acquired melodious canzones for her, -

The thoughts of gold about her, united, alloy!

Thoughts and sayings of Francesco Petrarch

Human life on earth is not just military service, but combat.

Personal presence is detrimental to fame.

Love is great at winning.

Svetlana Suvorova

The work of Francesco Petrarch and his influence on Russian literature

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The personality of Francesco Petrarch has been of interest to people all over the world for almost seven centuries. His heartfelt lines cannot help but sink into the soul of a person who has a keen sense of real reality. In this interest we can observe the fusion of two cultures - Italian and Russian. The work will examine the influence of Petrarch's work on Russian literature. However, first it is advisable to briefly talk about the era that gave us the great poet and philosopher, public figure and patriot of his country - F. Petrarch. We will also trace the main milestones of his biography.

Attention will also be paid to issues of beauty and harmony, sung by the lover Petrarch in his eternal muse - Laura. The meeting with this woman is rightfully considered a fateful event in the poet’s life. In this work we will touch upon some of the circumstances of the iconic meeting and the grandiose creative consequences of the passionate feeling that arose.

A separate part of the work will be devoted to the problems of modern translations of Petrarch’s original texts. We will try to understand how harmful a formal approach to translation techniques is to a true understanding of the author's meaning. Of course, during the discussion of the topic, the main names of Russian writers who have ever translated Petrarch’s masterpieces into Russian will be named.

The era of Petrarch.

The Renaissance is one of the most striking eras in the development of European culture, spanning almost three centuries from the mid-14th century. until the first decades of the 17th century. The peoples of Europe were experiencing major changes. Feudalism is gradually being replaced by capitalist relations. Work began to be stimulated by earnings, people were included in social and political life. A person’s ability to think intelligently and creatively comes to the fore. Society tried to return to the study of ancient culture.

Renaissance literature began with figures such as Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio. They affirmed humanistic ideas of personal dignity, linking it not with birth, but with the valiant deeds of a person, his freedom and the right to enjoy the joys of earthly life. Petrarch was a prominent figure of his time. He became famous not only for his poetic gift, but also for the power of his philosophical mind, as well as his active social position.

Francesco Petrarca was born into the family of the Florentine notary Petraccolo di Parenzo in 1304. It happened in Arezzo, a city located at the same time at the sources of the Arno and the Tiber. Francesco was eight years old when the family moved to Avignon (southern France). When the child grew up, his father sent him first to Montpellier, then to Bologna to study jurisprudence.

Francesco did not become a lawyer. Fate had something else in store for him. In 1326, after the death of his father, young Petrarch returned to Avignon and accepted the clergy. By that time he was already showing an undoubted inclination towards literary pursuits. On April 6, 1327, a fateful meeting takes place with a girl named Laura. We will talk in more detail about the significance of this meeting in the second part of the essay.

By 1340 Petrarch was gaining popularity. His authority is based on scientific activity. Petrarch was Europe's first humanist, expert on ancient culture, and founder of classical philology. He devoted his entire life to searching for, deciphering and interpreting ancient manuscripts. On April 8, 1341, by decision of the Roman Senate, Petrarch was crowned with the laurels of poet laureate. Until the end of his days, Petrarch conducted scientific research and was engaged in creativity. Petrarch meets the finale of his life in Arqua near Padua on the night of July 19, 1374.

Francesco Petrarca is considered the creator of the Italian language. Its influence on the formation of literature is indeed great. He constantly turned to active literature and took the best from there, introducing it into his works, judgments and views.

Beauty in the works of F. Petrarch.

S'amor non e, che dunque e quel ch'io sento?

[What do I feel if this is not love? (It.)]

The key event in the life of the Italian Renaissance poet was his meeting with a beautiful young woman, Laura. This happened in 1327 in the Church of St. Clare. It is her that the poet will passionately sing in his sonnets (this earned him the fame of “Laura’s singer”):

“There was a day on which, according to the Creator of the universe
Grieving, the Sun darkened... A ray of fire
From your eyes took me by surprise:
O lady, I have become their prisoner."

The love poems were included in the collection Canzoniere, consisting of two parts: “On the Life of Madonna Laura” and “On the Death of Madonna Laura.” "Canzoniere" consists of 317 sonnets, 29 canzones, 9 sextinas, 7 ballads and 4 madrigals.

It is worth noting that some researchers suggest that the existence of the image of Laura is far-fetched. They believe that she is a pure symbol of femininity. However, according to Petrarch himself, this woman was more than real. And is it possible to be so inspired by intangible fiction? To love one's own dreams so strongly is more like madness. Already in the 16th century, studies of ancient archives appeared, indicating that Laura bore the surname de Neuve, and in her marriage became Madame de Sade. The woman gave birth to eleven children, and among their descendants the writer is the Marquis de Sade. By the way, there is an assumption that Laura was not as beautiful as Petrarch described her. Most likely it was a simple girl. Earthly woman. But the power of the genius poet’s talent could no longer be stopped! His poetry and imagery did the trick - Laura is considered the most beautiful woman of her time.

Petrarch, went through the difficult path of a man who was once burned by a strong feeling. He experienced all the torments of love: doubts, disappointments, jealousy, but also pleasures. We are talking about spiritual pleasure; pleasure of physiological origin is nothing compared to “life” and uplifting the spirit. The poet was fueled by the energy of love for his ideal. For him, Laura was something unearthly, the purest and most perfect creature. Laura borders on the Divine for him. Otherwise, how can one explain such long-term spiritual fidelity to the image of the beloved woman on the part of Petrarch?

The poignancy of the poetry of the Italian romantic lies in the 100% frankness of his works. Feelings that are customary (at least in the modern world) to be hidden inside, Petrarch boldly exposed. He didn’t just sing, he shouted about his love and hope, longing and separation. The times of Petrarch were quite adjacent to the period of chivalry - veneration and praise of the lady of the heart was in the order of things. Warriors died on the battlefields, having managed to shout out the cherished name of the woman they loved.

Petrarch appreciated beauty in a general sense - he saw beauty in natural phenomena and passed it through his owl feeling to Laura:

“I’m silent about your beauty in poetry
And, feeling deeply embarrassed,
I want to correct this omission
And I fly to the memory of the first meeting.”

It is amazing that after Laura’s death, the fervor of feelings for her does not fade. Petrarch mourned the death of his beloved woman for nine years:

“I sang about her golden curls,
I sang of her eyes and hands,
Honoring torment as heavenly bliss,
And now she is cold dust.”

Death gives the poet a new impetus to creativity. His hymns began to resemble prayers, appeals to heaven. His grief was deep and unlimited in time. After all, there are no ex-lovers. And in the case of Petrarch, we observe a true feeling of love, which is not hindered even by centuries. The rays of that feeling warm us to this day. And the beauty of poetic images makes you admire again and again.

The creative influence of Francesco Petrarch on Russian literature.

Speaking about the influence of Petrarch, the work of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin immediately comes to mind. The Russian poet is a representative of the Russian Renaissance. This era was similar to the Renaissance, from here it is easy to draw parallels to the personality of Petrarch. Pushkin, like Petrarch, was close to antiquity. First of all, this was manifested in relation to beauty, namely to female beauty. In Italy, a special perception of female beauty is associated with the worship of the Mother of God, with the creation of countless Madonnas, but faith recedes before Petrarch’s immediate feeling of love for Laura. Therefore, images of the Mother of God turn out to be portraits of beautiful earthly women. We read from Pushkin:

“In my simple corner, amidst slow labors,
I wanted to be forever a spectator of one picture,
One: so that from the canvas, like from the clouds,
Most Pure One and our divine savior -
She with greatness, he with reason in his eyes -
They looked, meek, in glory and in the rays,
Alone, without angels, under the palm of Zion.”

Also, the beauty of Natalya Nikolaevna is of an aesthetic nature, by analogy with the beauty of Laura. It is obvious that Pushkin admired the Italian poet. Where does Eugene Onegin want to run? To Italy - for what? - “There my lips will find the Language of Petrarch and love.” Repeatedly in his works, Pushkin respectfully mentions the name of Petrarch. And if you think about it, the very theme of the novel “Eugene Onegin” is close to “Canzoniere”.

The most important for Russian literature and literature were the author's translations of Petrarch's works. Many writers and poets distinguished themselves in this field - Gavrila Derzhavin, Ivan Krylov, Ivan Kozlov, Konstantin Batyushkov, Apollon Maikov and others. According to Tomashevsky, “acquaintance with Petrarch in Russia occurred at the beginning of the 19th century, when his perception was largely prompted by Petrarch’s “romantic” reputation, which developed under the pen of theorists and practitioners of Western European romanticism.”

We can find quotes from Petrarch’s work in the work of F. M. Dostoevsky “The Village of Stepanchikovo and its Inhabitants.” Foma Fomich Opiskin says the following: “I saw that a tender feeling was blooming in her heart like a spring rose, and involuntarily recalled Petrarch, who said that “innocence is so often on the verge of death.” Such a sentimental inclusion was capable of decorating the speech of even such a cracker as Thomas.

Addressing the general reader, Dostoevsky would not base Thomas’s parody speech on something unknown to this reader, or count on his acquaintance with Petrarch. It is more logical to assume that the Russian reader’s acquaintance with Petrarch had already taken place and this acquaintance was definite, quite in the spirit of the sentimental-romantic style that Dostoevsky based the speech characterization of Thomas.

And the beginning of the acquaintance of the Russian public with Petrarch was laid by the famous poet Konstantin Batyushkov, perhaps the first Italianist in Russia, the author of articles about Petrarch and Tasso. At the end of the 1800s, he undertook a translation of one of Petrarch's most famous sonnets (CCLXIX) and wrote an arrangement of canzone I, which he called “The Evening.” He adds and modifies the content of the sonnet. In Batyushkov’s text there appear “scorched by rays”, “cold north”, “greedy death”, “coffin stone”, “midnight sobs”, “eternal tears”, “eternal tears”, “cold stone”, “sweet seduction”, “ bliss”, “peace”, “consolation” - that is, the vocabulary in its entirety is of a sentimental-romantic nature. The arrangement of the canzona contains the same set of speech required for “sad” poetry: “silent walls”, “brooding moon”, “pastures watered by fog”. This vocabulary is in obvious contradiction with the clear vocabulary and phraseology of Petrarch’s poems: their coloring is contrasting, bright, not blurred by halftones of unclear feelings (cf., for example, Fra Angelico’s frescoes with Turner’s landscapes). All this is replaced by Batyushkov with sad lamentations (a symptom of the “disease of the century”). But this is exactly how the romantic age wanted to see and saw Petrarch.

To a significant extent, the successor of this romantic interpretation of Petrarch, only in an even more condensed form, without the sobering Batiushkovsky classicism, was the poet Ivan Kozlov. By the way, he translated the same CCLXIX sonnet as Batyushkov, adding two more quatrains to it.

In these translations we also see “mysterious dream”, and “rigidity”, and “wonderful bliss”, and “fiery dreamer”, and “languid fire of captivating eyes”. And if we take Kozlov’s original poems (replete, to say the least, with direct reminiscences from Petrarch), such as messages to Countess Fikelmon and her daughter, then there we will find repeatedly repeated “innocence”, and “purity”, and “pearls”, and “unbridled passions”, and “sighs”, and “moans” - in a word, the entire vocabulary and phraseology that Dostoevsky’s tenacious ear so accurately captured. Russian poets of that time were attracted only by a few motifs, which they, removing them from the general artistic context, read to Petrarch. Thus, they read the motif of the “recluse poet,” the motif of peaceful rural life as opposed to the bustling city life.

Late 19th - early 20th century. V. - this period was marked by a decline in the wave of interest in Petrarch. However, the activities of translating Petrarch were carried out by: Vladimir Solovyov, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Bryusov, Mandelstam. During this period, the Book of Songs was most often translated. Philological science is developing, hence translations become more accurate and formally stricter. This is the disadvantage of modern times - the poetry of verse has begun to lose ground. The era gradually changed and Petrarch moved into the category of classical authors, the interest in whom is no longer so strong. The world has become more rational and even more cynical. Technical and scientific progress have made human minds more progmatic.

The 20th century opens a fundamentally new page in the history of Russian Petrarch. It is connected with Russian symbolism, and above all with the name of Vyacheslav Ivanov.

In 1940, I. A. Bunin wrote that he was angry with Italy “because of our aesthetic fools”: “I only love trecento in Florence...” And he himself was born in Belev and was in Florence for only one week in his entire life. Trecento, Quattrocento... And I hated all these Fra Angelico, Ghirlandaio, Trecento, Quattrocento and even Beatrice in a woman's hat and laurel wreath...” This is said in the story “Henry”.

Bunin's opinion was firm. Thirty-one years earlier, according to V.N. Muromtseva, not having had time to cross the Italian border, he immediately began to say that he was “so tired of the lovers of Italy who began to rave about the trecento, quattrocento, that “I’m about to hate Fra Angelico, Giotto and even Beatrice herself along with Dante...” (“Literary Heritage”, vol. 84, “Ivan Bunin”, book 2. M., 1973, p. 207). The mood, therefore, is stable. There are almost no discrepancies, except that Giotto was for some reason replaced by Petrarch. In the times to which this characteristic refers, the “aestheticians” were no less fond of Petrarch than of Dante. G. N. Kuznetsova writes in her Grasse Diary on December 10, 1931: “After lunch, sitting with I. A. Bunin in his office, we talked about Petrarch. He re-reads a book about him and shares his thoughts with me along the way. He read his sonnets to me. I tried to draw Laura's appearance. He says that he thinks that to a large extent all these sonnets were literature, there is little life in them... and only the solemn and sadly majestic sound in his own words about Laura’s death convinces him of her true existence.” (“Literary Heritage”, vol. 84, “Ivan Bunin”, book 2. M., 1973, p. 282) By the way, Bunin’s thoughts about Petrarch and Laura resulted a year later in the story “The Fairest of the Sun,” written in Avignon.

The author of the Grasse Diary, unfortunately, does not indicate which book Bunin was rereading that day and which sonnets and in whose translation he read to her. I believe, however, that this assessment, made in his characteristic aphoristic, harsh manner, can with great right be attributed to the work of Vyacheslav Ivanov, and not to the original. It is unlikely that Bunin could start from his own not very successful youth experience, when in 1892 he translated one sonnet (XIII) by Petrarch for a collective collection of poetry that was then being prepared. This translation, however, was rejected by A. Volynsky, and Bunin published it only a few years later. The sonnet really turned out to be somewhat heavy and “blurry”. Contrary to the already established tradition, it was made in smooth iambic hexameter, and it should rather be considered as Bunin’s preparation for translating Mickiewicz’s sonnets, as a well-known adaptation to the sonnet form in general, than as a thoughtful appeal to Petrarch’s poetry.

It is doubtful that Bunin, in his assessment of Petrarch, was guided by essentially handicraft translations of the second half of the last century. Bunin did not know enough Italian to judge Petrarch in the original. But as for Vyacheslav Ivanov’s translations, he knew them for sure. For the Russian reader of that time (and it is known what a zealous and biased reader Bunin was), Ivanov’s Petrarchan translations were a new discovery of Petrarch. They were talked about, argued about, admired, attacked. In a word, at the time of their appearance they became not just a cultural event, but first of all a literary fact, bringing together the searches of supporters of the “new art” with the great experience of the past. The modernists - like the romantics in the past - had their own predecessors. One of them, under the pen of Ivanov, was Petrarch.

One must assume that this circumstance did not escape Bunin’s keen eye. It is known that for Bunin, everything that was associated with the decadents, symbolists and other schools and movements of “new art” was “literature” in the negative (if not abusive) sense of the word. In his review “On the Works of Gorodetsky,” Bunin sarcastically attacks representatives of the “new art” in literature, and in particular Ivanov, whom he reproaches for “remembering seminars and pulling out ancient words from Dahl’s dictionary in order to absurdly combine them with hexameter ”, scolds Ivanov’s co-contemporaries in the “new art” for their predilection for putting words that do not have them in the plural. If you look from this point of view at Vyacheslav Ivanov’s translations from Petrarch, then our assumption will not seem like a stretch. Church Slavonicisms and tracings (like: “Sometimes doubt torments: how can these members (body - N.T.) live, separated from the soul?"), “glories” (plural) . number from "glory"). And if we add to this the deliberate use of significant capital letters in words that do not require it, then one actually gets the impression of deliberate literaryness, a certain pomp and unnaturalness, which always offended Bunin so much.

In fact, Ivanov’s undoubted merit as a translator of Petrarch lies in the fact that he was the first of the major Russian writers to approach Petrarch not “suddenly,” but fully armed while remaining a considerable poet. Moreover, subordinating the tasks of translation not just to educational cultural purposes, but to the urgent needs of living Russian literature. Hence the controversy surrounding his translations, which were rightly regarded primarily as a fact of Russian poetry, albeit of the direction that irritated Bunin.

The modern reader needs explanations of Petrarch's translations. That is why Ivanov tried to convey this well-known “bookishness” of the original by stylistic means, using historicisms and combinations. Ivanov managed to do what none of his even the most powerful predecessors managed to do: to recreate - with all the inevitable losses - the poetic system of the Petrarchan sonnet, its stylistic multi-layeredness. The Romantics made Petrarch completely their own, forced him to suffer from the “disease of the century,” their century. Vyachesla Ivanov managed to instill in the Russian reader a keen interest in him and faith in the reality of the sad story about Laura.

So the nineteenth century in Russia is poor in Petrarch's lines, but rich in semantic influences on the reader's consciousness. In the twentieth century, almost all of Petrarch was translated into Russian, but a certain global vision of his works was lost. It is quite obvious that a secondary discovery of Petrarch in the literary world is coming. The works of the brilliant poet and philosopher still carry high creative and literary potential for future generations.

Francesco Petrarca is an outstanding literary and public figure of the Renaissance. The world of feelings and beauty he created is understandable only to a refined, poetically minded person. In Petrarch's poems, love is interpreted as the basis of the entire life of an ardent heart. Beloved Laura acts as a model of virtue, the focus of all perfections. The poet affirms the cleansing, ennobling effect of her beauty. However, his Laura is endowed with the features of a real woman, who evokes in him, along with sublime, platonic love, also sensual attraction. He himself admits this in his “Message to Descendants.” Petrarch constantly finds new colors, new images and ways to describe her beauty. In her every glance and movement, he sees something unique and original, which he captures in his poetic lines. This model of creativity is very instructive. It is built on endless creation. As infinite as the true feeling of love.

It is necessary to use all scientific methods and techniques in order to preserve the originality of Petrarch’s texts. It is no secret that when translating works, the elusive meaning, the shadow of the author's intention, is often lost. Working with the masterpieces of Francesco Petrarch requires special skill and creativity. Then descendants will receive the masterpieces of the great poet in their original form and will be able to enjoy the refined romance of the Renaissance.

Sonnet III of the “Canzoniere” cycle, part I - “On the life of Madonna Laura.”

“I am silent about your beauty in poetry...” - XX sonnet of the “Canzoniere” cycle, part I - “On the life of Madonna Laura.”

“I fell at her feet in verse...” - CCXCII sonnet of the “Canzoniere” cycle, part II - “On the death of Madonna Laura.”

A. S. Pushkin, poem “Madonna” // Poems, poems, prose. - M.: Panorama, 1995. - p. 485.

N. Timoshevsky “Petrarch in the Russian poetic word.”

Literature:

1. Sonnets of the cycle “Canzoniere”, parts I and II - “On the life of Madonna Laura”, “On the death of Madonna Laura”.

2. A. S. Pushkin, poem “Madonna” // Poems, poems, prose. - M.: Panorama, 1995.

3. N. Timoshevsky “Petrarch in the Russian poetic word.”

4. A. Berdnikov “Notes on the margins of Petrarch’s translations.”

5. I. M. Semenko “Batyushkov and his experiments.”

On April 6, 1327, the first meeting took place Francesco Petrarch With Laura. A married woman became a permanent muse for the great poet, a sublime and unattainable dream. At the same time, it is unknown whether Laura herself knew about his feelings or not.

366 sonnets

I bless the day, the minute, the shares
Minutes, time of year, month, year,
Both the place and the chapel are wonderful,
Where a bright look doomed me to captivity

This is how Petrarch recalled his first meeting with the fair-haired beauty Laura, who once and for all stole his peace. We know that the fateful meeting took place at the Easter service on April 6 from the words of the poet himself, who left not only poetic lines about this day, but also detailed memories: “Laura, known for her virtues and long glorified by my songs, first appeared to me eyes at the dawn of my youth, in the year of the Lord 1327, on the morning of April 6, in the Cathedral of St. Clare, in Avignon."

She was twenty years old, he was twenty-three. Their meeting could not be the beginning of a happy love story: Laura was already married, and Petrarch was under a vow of celibacy. The lover could only cast languid glances at the Beautiful Lady and sing her praises in his sonnets, canzones, sextinas, ballads, madrigals...

The poet combined 366 sonnets dedicated to Laura into the “Book of Songs”, which glorified not only his feelings, but also poetry itself - glorifying the love of a man for a woman, and not a slave for God, Petrarch marked the beginning of the Proto-Renaissance era (a stage in the history of Italian culture, preceding the Renaissance).

Altichiero da Zevio, portrait of Petrarch. Source: Public Domain

Angel in the flesh

The poet, who preferred to lead a wandering life, spent another three years after the fateful meeting in Avignon. Researchers do not know the answer to the question: did they exchange at least one word during this time? Did Laura know about the passionate feelings of the great Italian? But there is no doubt that Petrarch’s Muse was a worthy wife, and in the eyes of a lover she is a real angel:

Among thousands of women there was only one,
Invisibly struck my heart.
Only with the appearance of a good seraphim
She could match her beauty.

Historians are inclined to believe that Petrarch's Muse was Laura De Nov - the golden-haired daughter of the Syndic of Avignon Audiberta de Nov, mother of 11 children. However, Petrarch's love is in many ways like history Dante Alighieri And Beatrice- in both cases, skeptics doubt the real existence of the Muses. In their opinion, the Beautiful Ladies were just a figment of the imagination of romantic poets.

Laura, drawing from the 15th century (?) Laurentian Library. Source: Public Domain

The name of Laura is not mentioned in any of Petrarch's letters (with the exception of a letter to descendants, where he talks about his past love, and a letter where he refutes accusations that she is not real). Basic information about Laura can be gleaned from Petrarch’s handwritten notes and his poetic lines, where her name is usually found in a play on words - golden, laurel, air. But the credibility of the image of the Muse is given by the fact that the poet once ordered a cameo with her portrait from an artist from the Avignon Curia:

This beautiful face tells us,
That on Earth she is a dweller of heaven,
Those best places where the spirit is not hidden by flesh,
And that such a portrait could not be born,
When the Artist from unearthly orbits
I came here to marvel at mortal wives

Petrarch justified his fanatical platonic love by the fact that it was she who helped him get rid of earthly weaknesses, it was she who elevated him. But even this noble feeling did not prevent the famous poet from having two illegitimate children from different women (history is silent about their names).

Mary Spartali Stillman. "The first meeting of Petrarch and Laura."