THE EVOLUTION OF ALLEGORY IN THE PASTORAL ... - Repositories

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belief that poetry is a divine gift of nature and that the
Muses have favored the Italians more than the French with
this gift.
At least four of Petrarch's eclogues have political
considerations.
The second is a eulogy for Robert of
Naples, whose death was the occasion of many woes to his
realm.
The fifth is a panegyric to Cola Rienzo, whose
short-lived revolution "to revive the grandeur that was
Rome" seemed to Petrarch the greatest and noblest adventure
of the age.
The sixth and seventh expose the wickedness
of the Papal court at Avignon, which Petrarch gravely
detested.
In these two pastorals, he developed a motive
implicit in the medieval eclogue:
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church satire through
personal religious reflections.
The last four of Petrarch's twelve poems are expressions
of sorrow.
Eclogue IX despairs over the disastrous
results of the Black Death, which Petrarch suggests was
sent to punish mankind for its sins.
The tenth and eleventh
eclogues, which are reminiscent of the "Laura sonnets,"
mourn the death of his Laura.
The final eclogue grieves
for John of France, who was captured by the English.
Although his eclogues are full of verbal conceits,
awkward figures, pathetic fallacy, elements of melancholy
love, and the spirit of sentimentality, Petrarch's Latin
retains the classic purity of the language.
The distinguishing
characteristic of his Carmen remains in the covert