Analysis of Sonnet CCXIX.

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304 (Tuscan city of Arezzo) – 1374 (Arquà, Padua, Republic of Venice)



On the fair face for which I long and sigh
    Mine eyes were fasten'd with desire intense.
    When, to my fond thoughts, Love, in best reply,
    Her honour'd hand uplifting, shut me thence.
    My heart there caught--as fish a fair hook by,
    Or as a young bird on a lim�d fence--
    For good deeds follow from example high,
    To truth directed not its busied sense.
    But of its one desire my vision reft,
    As dreamingly, soon oped itself a way,
    Which closed, its bliss imperfect had been left:
    My soul between those rival glories lay,
    Fill'd with a heavenly and new delight,
    Whose strange surpassing sweets engross'd it quite.


Scheme ABABABABCDCDCC
Poetic Form
Metre 1011111101 11010101001 1111110101 01110111 1111110111 1101110111 1111010101 1101011101 11110101101 11110101 1111010111 1101110101 1101000101 1101010111
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 646
Words 109
Sentences 4
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 470
Words per stanza (avg) 109
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Submitted by halel on July 15, 2020

Modified on April 23, 2023

33 sec read
90

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)

Francesco Petrarca (Italian: [franˈtʃesko peˈtrarka]; July 20, 1304 – July 18/19, 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (/ˈpiːtrɑːrk, ˈpɛt-/), was an Italian scholar and poet during the early Italian Renaissance, and one of the earliest humanists more…

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