Giovanni Boccaccio and Francis Petrarch's Differing Views on Love

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The Love of Poetry and Story Fiction

Love is a powerful experience. As cupid's arrows rains down from the sky, "sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye." (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.) We try to capture and forever hold that experience through the art of painting, recording, and writing, hoping that one day someone will retell the memory. In 1353, Giovanni Boccaccio, completed the Decameron, which consists "the fictional record of ten days: spent telling one hundred tales during one of the worst plagues ever to strike Europe." Boccaccio wrote these novellas trying to escape the black plague; although these stories do not depict his personal life, they are rather explicit about love in the 14th century. However, writing fiction wasn't the only way to express an individual's experience of love; Francis Petrarch, an Italian poet, writes his experiences of love through poetry in his Canzoniere. Both writers note their experiences about love; however, their view of love differ significantly from each other; Boccaccio views love as innocent, joyful, and patient, while Petrarch views love as fearful and destructive.

Boccaccio's tenth story, "Locking the Devil Up in Hell," depicts a young women who has been manipulated by pious men into doing sexual acts as her righteousness to please God has overwhelmed her wits. Boccaccio characterizes the women as naive as one can be, she is obsessed with pleasing God that she will listen to anyone who speaks on how."Oh, Father," replied the girl in all innocence, "if I really do have a Hell, let's do as you suggest just as soon as you are ready." Boccaccio suggests that the young women's situation has no intention of harming anyone as her goal is to fulfill the urge of putting the devil...

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... of my condition" says the husband.

Boccaccio's representation of love through Griselda's situation seems soft and gentle-like, she doesn't have the confidence to overpower her husband and so she must put up with the treatment."Griselda was secretly filled with despair. But she prepared herself to endure this final blow as stoically. . ." In the end of the story, the husband confesses that the acts of distrust were proof of how strong their love is, as the happy couple lives happily ever after.
Lastly, both Boccaccio's and Petrarch's perspective of love has major disagreements. Boccaccio's stories, suggests that love is innocent, joyful and patient, meanwhile, Petrarch's poems, encourages individual's fall in love because it will bring fear and destruction to one's life.

Works Cited

"H. Jackson Brown, Jr.." BrainyQuote.com. Xplore Inc, 2014. 31 January 2014.

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