Petrarch's Songbook

Book excerpt: "Petrarch's Canzoniere is a body of 366 poems, mostly sonnets but including forms such as madrigals and canzoni. These wonderful poems marked the intellectual and cultural divide between the Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance. Cook's translation, a splendid poetic work in its own right, ""elegantly combining grace and accuracy... ranks among the best."" (K.V. Gouwens, UC-Santa Barbara). The translation, says Konrad Eisenbichler, ""captures the moods, tones, and variety of Petrarch's own verse. A truly remarkable feat."" Cook addresses the deceptive simplicity of Petrarch's vocabulary, the work's cultural context rendered here as broadly modern rather than facilely archaic, and the elegance of his poetic diction. The Italian text (ed. Gianfranco Contini) is printed on facing pages."