ABSTRACT
Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca), the greatest lyric poet of the Italian Renaissance whose work provided a model for Renaissance poets throughout Europe, influenced Spenser in many ways. Among Spenser’s first published works was a translation of canzone 323 from Petrarch’s Rime sparse, which appeared in van der Noot’s Theatre for Worldlings (1569) along with unrhymed translations of du Bellay’s Songe. He thought highly enough of it to republish it as The Visions of Petrarch in Complaints (1591). By then Petrarch’s influence had already shaped parts of The Faerie Queene, especially its amatory episodes. Britomart’s complaint in FQ III iv 8-10, for example, is a free translation of Petrarch’s sonnet 189. Spenser’s most sustained debt occurs in his Amoretti. The lineage of the sonnet sequence begins with Petrarch’s Rime and includes the Petrarchan poetry of many of Europe’s finest poets-Sannazaro, Ariosto, Tasso, du Bellay, Ronsard, Desportes, and others-all of whom provided Spenser with further models.
