Petrarch the Poet (Routledge Revivals): An Introduction to the 'Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta'

In this critical and historical interpretation of Petrarch’s major Italian work, the collection of poems he called the Rerum vulgarium fagmenta, Peter Hainsworth presents Petrarch as a poet of outstanding sophistication and seriousness, occupied with issues which are still central to debates about poetry and language.

In the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta Petrarch reformed the received Italian tradition, creating a new kind of lyric poetry. In particular, he found solutions to the intellectual, l...