Book Section
Manuele Gragnolati
Francesca Southerden
Francesca Southerden
Openness and Intensity
Petrarch’s Becoming Laurel in Rerum vulgarium fragmenta 23 and 228
Our paper offers a comparative reading of Rvf 23 and 228, which describe the poetic subject’s transformation into (23), or implantation with (228), the laurel tree that normally represents the poet’s beloved, Laura. Bringing Petrarch’s poems into dialogue with philosophical works that consider the nature of plant existence as a form of interconnectedness and porosity to the outside, we argue that the becoming tree these poems stage is a form of desire to be understood not as lack but as intensity.
Keywords: Petrarch; desire; intensity; plants; metamorphosis; hybridity; pleasure
| Title |
Openness and Intensity
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| Subtitle |
Petrarch’s Becoming Laurel in Rerum vulgarium fragmenta 23 and 228
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| Author(s) |
Manuele Gragnolati
Francesca Southerden
|
| Identifier | |
| Description |
Our paper offers a comparative reading of Rvf 23 and 228, which describe the poetic subject’s transformation into (23), or implantation with (228), the laurel tree that normally represents the poet’s beloved, Laura. Bringing Petrarch’s poems into dialogue with philosophical works that consider the nature of plant existence as a form of interconnectedness and porosity to the outside, we argue that the becoming tree these poems stage is a form of desire to be understood not as lack but as intensity.
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| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
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| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
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| Date |
19 April 2022
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| Subject |
Petrarch
desire
intensity
plants
metamorphosis
hybridity
pleasure
|
| Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
|
| Language |
en-GB
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| page start |
209
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| page end |
224
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| Source |
Openness in Medieval Europe, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati and Almut Suerbaum, Cultural Inquiry, 23 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022), pp. 209–24
|
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Cite as:
Manuele Gragnolati and Francesca Southerden, ‘Openness and Intensity: Petrarch’s Becoming Laurel in Rerum vulgarium fragmenta 23 and 228’, in Openness in Medieval Europe, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati and Almut Suerbaum, Cultural Inquiry, 23 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022), pp. 209-24 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-23_11>