One morning in the fourteenth century, young Francis P. went to church, as one did, and wham, he caught a glimpse of a complete stranger named Laura. For the rest of his life he harboured a deep, completely unrequited love - she never even knew the poor guy existed - and, in order to channel his troubled feelings, churned out over over 360 love poems dedicated to some bint he'd only seen for 30 seconds between two church pillars. For all he knew she could have been a complete idiot; talk about idealisation. Anyway; not only did she never get to read them, but she also died of the plague, a fairly fashionable death at the time. As a result, his personal literary catharsis became a symbol for the birth of romantic love and other humanistic notions. Before him and his ilk, there was no romantic love to speak of, was there. People happily pillaged and raped their way around. And then, 366 poems about pure and overwhelming love later, courtship and romanticised notions of coupledom became all the rage. I blame Francis P for this unshakable yearning for.. for.. all this mess I'm in.Better get a start on the poems, then.
2 comments:
I sooooo know what you mean. I was supremely grateful even to find out Petrarch existed, because here, at last, was someone to blame for these stupidly fetishistic obsessions with every last inch of someone.
Vanessa / sarsparilla
And don't even get me started on Ronceau.
At least François Villon wrote about people who were about to be hanged and then slowly decompose hanging from a tree as an example to all. That didn't fill anybody with silly hopes and aspirations. Happier days.
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