Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or relating to Francesco Petrarch, a renowned Renaissance Italian humanist.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Petrarch +‎ -an

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Examples

  • Sophist in Petrarchan and Promethean trappings and alluding freely to Byron's biography, Hemans leaves little doubt that her target is

    Scepticism and Its Costs: Hemans's Reading of Byron 2001

  • In addition to reminding me of my own difficulties and insecurities when doing my first research as a graduate student (my friends are probably wearied of the tale of how Arthur Marotti justifiably disemboweled my first Shakespeare paper because of my misuse of the term "Petrarchan"), it also reminded me of how opaque academic culture can look from the outside.

    Squire (and TORn)'s Academic Adventure Richard Nokes 2006

  • Mark Pattison, a stout "Petrarchan," lays down these rules in the Preface to his edition of Milton's Sonnets:

    A Study of Poetry Bliss Perry 1907

  • This strict "Petrarchan" form has endured for six centuries.

    A Study of Poetry Bliss Perry 1907

  • He also comments, showing the novel's glinting humor, that an opposing team's warm-up drills are "as crisp as Petrarchan sonnets."

    Call Me Safe, Ishmael Sam Sacks 2011

  • May I suggest, that in honouring the promise you made your wife, the sonnet form you choose is the Italian Sonnet form, which is Petrarchan; so obviously will be in iambic pentameter, but the most comfortable and (in my opinion) elegant form: abbacddceffegg.

    Roses and poems « Write Anything 2010

  • The form and content are as rigid and unchangeable as a Petrarchan sonnet or a Noh play, starting with a young person having a premonition of a catastrophic accident that saves the lives of a number of people, most of them from his own circle.

    Final Destination 5 – review 2011

  • The familiar semi-magical Petrarchan markers are in place – a forest where the weary lover-hunter will lose his way, the elusive and singular deer who is both prey and fatal enchantress.

    Love in literature 2011

  • "Romeo" means "pilgrim to Rome" and Mr. Goold's painstaking direction makes the most of the lovers 'word-playful exchange (in Petrarchan sonnet form, Act 1, scene V) where Romeo says, "My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand ..."

    Energetic 'Romeo and Juliet' Triumphs Paul Levy 2010

  • "Romeo" means "pilgrim to Rome" and Mr. Goold's painstaking direction makes the most of the lovers 'word-playful exchange (in Petrarchan sonnet form, Act 1, scene V) where Romeo says, "My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand ..."

    Energetic 'Romeo and Juliet' Triumphs Paul Levy 2010

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