Petrarch and Petrachism

The lecture begins with an examination of the Italian poet Francis Petrarch (1304-1374) and the formation of the poetic convention known as Petrarchism from his posthumous influence all over Europe, and moves on to a close reading of selected poems of English poets, from William Shakespeare to W. B. Yeats, which displays how later poets confront, inherit and react to Petrarchism in their respective creative pursuit.