Bergin, Thomas G., trans., Petrarch's Bucolicum Carmen (New Haven: Yale University Press)
Text name(s): Bucolicum Carmen
Number of pages of primary source text: 214
Author(s):
Dates: 1346 - 1352
Archival Reference:
Original Language(s):
- Latin
Translation:
- Translated into English.
- Original language included.
Translation Comments:
Geopolitical Region(s):
- Italy
- France
County/Region: Vaucluse; Rome
Record Types:
- Literature - Verse
Subject Headings:
- Women / Gender
- Classics / Humanism
- Royalty / Monarchs
- Plague and Disease
- Papacy
- Monasticism
- Government
- Towns / Cities
- Clergy - Priests, Bishops, Canons
- War - Military History
- Diplomacy
Apparatus:
- Introduction
Comments:
From his country retreat at Vaucluse near Avignon where Petrarch escaped the troubles of plague and war, Petrarch wrote a series of twelve eclogues on the model of Virgil between 1346 and 1352. At the height of his literary fame and encountering trouble with his epic poem Africa, Petrarch found the Bucolicum Carmen a pleasant reprieve. The twelve eclogues are highly allegorical and often comment on non-pastoral subjects. The first contrasts the monastic and literary lives; the second is a eulogy for Robert of Naples; the third concerns the pursuit of Laura and fame; the fourth extols Italian poetry over French; the fifth praises Cola di Rienzi; the sixth and seventh are polemics against abuses of the Avignon Curia; the eight laments the absence of Petrach’s friend Cardinal Colonna; the ninth mourns the destruction caused by the Black Death; the tenth is a lengthy catalogue of ancient writers; the eleventh is a farewell to Laura; the twelfth deals with the conflict between the French and English.
Introduction Summary:
The introduction (8 pp.) gives background on the circumstances surrounding the creation of the Bucolicum Carmen, especially what it meant to Petrarch. A brief list of the topics as given before a very brief comment on the collection’s reception amongst Renaissance and modern readers.
Cataloger: JMB
