PETRARCH, DANTE AND THE TROUBADOURS THE RELIGION OF LOVE AND POETRY By Jeremy Mark Robinson An exploration of two of the great Italian poets, Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarch, and their relation to the troubadour poets and the courtly love tradition of the Middle Ages. Francesco Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304-1374) is the supreme poet of love in the Western tradition, alongside poets such as Sappho and William Shakespeare. Francesco Petrarch is also the Renaissance artist and humanist par excellence. Petrarchism is termed the longest poetic tradition in the Occident, and Petrarch has influenced poets such as Maurice Scève, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Torquato Tasso, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Joachim Du Bellay, Pierre de Ronsard, Rainer Maria Rilke and Robert Graves, among hundreds of others. Dante Alighieri composed his own cycle of love poems, the New Life (Vita Nuova), about his meeting with Beatrice Portinari. The Vita Nuova or New Life draws on (and is part of) the dolce stil novo, the 'sweet style' of Italian poets such as Guido Cavalcanti, Guido Guinicelli, Cino da Pistoia and other stilnovisti. Dante was an admirer of love poetry (he praised Arnaut Daniel in the Divina Commedia). Includes a timeline of Francesco Petrarch, an extensive bibliography, and a gallery of pictures. 236 pages. www.crmoon.com