Tracing Petrarch: The Representation of Romantic Love from Middle Ages to Current Day

Abstract

I aim to trace modalities and afterlives of Petrarchan love throughout the early modern/Renaissance era, British and American modernism, and current contemporary culture. In following the idea of loving a person from afar, I seek to examine how methods of idealization and objectification of the beloved persist and shift through the ages. Through the theoretical lenses of Lacanian mirroring and projection, I will explore how distance and perception of unattainability affect the representation and definition of "love," then trace what effects those ideals have on the voice and agency of the usually female beloved in literature.