Sonnet 18

“If no love is, O God, what fele I so?” by Petrarch, translated by Geoffrey Chaucer (1385)

Chaucer included this translation of Petrarch’s sonnet in his medieval romance Troilus and Criseyde. Published shortly after Petrarch’s death, Chaucer’s insertion of the Italian poet’s work illustrates its role in the courtly love tradition. Troilus exhibits many characteristics of the Petrarchan lover, pining over Criseyde. Furthermore, Chaucer is drawing upon Petrarch’s promotion of humanism by re-telling a romance based around a Greek character from the matter of Troy. Furthermore, Chaucer’s source material for his romance was Il Filostrato, written by Petrarch’s friend, Giovanni Boccaccio.

“I Find no Peace” by Petrarch, translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1557)

Thomas Wyatt, known mostly as the lover of Anne Boleyn, played a large role in popularizing Petrarch and the sonnet form among English Renaissance poets. His liberal translations of Petrarch appeared in Tottel’s Miscellany, which had the goal of making the vernacular English language popular for poetry. Petrarch had popularized Italian when French was considered best for academics and poetry, and his work aided in doing the same when Italian was considered a more learned tongue than English.

Furthermore, this particular sonnet is a great example of Petrarch’s adynaton. The adynaton is an impossibility device, a poetic turn of phrase relaying something that is impossible. The first line, “I find no peace, and all my war is done” creates an impossible space of no peace and no war. This literary device does not feature heavily in “Sonnet 18,” but it is a feature of many poems in the Canzoniere.

“Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt” by John Donne (1633)

John Donne’s Holy Sonnets are deeply influenced by Petrarch. In English, Donne follows the same rhyme scheme as Petrarch in the Italian octave of “Sonnet 18.” Later in the collection, Petrarch’s beloved Laura dies. This sonnet by Donne explores the poet’s feelings surrounding the death of his wife. The “you,” or “thee” (Line 6), of Donne’s poem is God. This positions God as the beloved and takes Petrarch’s connections between Laura and the Catholic Virgin Mary to a very different poetic place.

“Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent” by John Milton (1673)

This poem follows closely to Petrarchan themes, including light, sight, and death. Milton is one of the key poets who popularized humanism in English poetry and literature. The central motif of “Sonnet 19” is the expenditure of “light” as life, with the poet contemplating their age. Of critical importance is that this poem was written on the occasion of John Milton’s blindness, requiring him to have an amanuensis (scribe) to compose works such as the humanist masterpiece Paradise Lost. In this way, Milton’s sonnet builds upon the simile of the blind man in Petrarch’s “Sonnet 18.”