+- Twitist Forums (http://twitist.com)
+-- Forum: Twitter forums (/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Twitter abbreviations (/forum-4.html)
+--- Thread: Can someone paraphrase Sonnet 42 by Petrarch? (/thread-65412.html)
Can someone paraphrase Sonnet 42 by Petrarch? - Rona Marie - 02-28-2013 03:23 PM
The spring returns, the spring wind softly blowing
Sprinkles the grass with gleam and glitter of showers,
Powdering pearl and diamond, dripping with flowers,
Dropping wet flowers, dancing the winters going;
The swallow twitters, the groves of midnight are glowing
With nightingale music and madness; the sweet fierce powers
Of love flame up through the earth; the seed-soul towers
And trembles; nature is filled to overflowing…
The spring returns, but there is no returning
Of spring for me. O heart with anguish burning!
She that unlocked all April in a breath
Returns not…And these meadows, blossoms, birds
These lovely gentle girls—words, empty words
As bitter as the black estates of death!
ANY RESPONSE WOULD BE HELPFUL !Thank You !
- nemesis - 02-28-2013 03:31 PM
This is a Petrarchan-style or Italian-style sonnet (of course, because Petrarch himself wrote it) -- that means, among other things, that it is logically organized such that the first 8 lines present one idea and the last 6 lines present a contrasting idea.
Often such two-part sonnets contain a question then an answer, or a problem then a solution. This one's a little different in that the first part celebrates all the beauties of spring, a season that ends but then returns again every year; but the second part suddenly introduces the theme of lost love: unlike beautiful springtime, the poem's speaker's lover has gone away and will never return, and this knowledge ruins the beauties of springtime for him.