Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta

Rating:
Summary: Should be read as a novel from start to finish
Review: While there are other good translations of selections from the Canzoniere, Petrarcch's masterpiece needs to be read as a whole from start to finish in order to be fully appreciated. Petrarch planned and rewrote these poems in order to fit into an overall plan.
Usually I skip introductions to works that I read but I read the first paragraph of the extensive introduction and was quickly drawn in. This introduction was actualy a helpful prologue to the poetry which descibed Petrach's styles and intentions.
A blurb on the book cover says that Musa's treanslations read so well that you are unaware that they are translations. I certainly agree. I do not read Italian but this edition does conain the originals on the adjacent side.
I was surprised at the modernity and musicality of the poems. Petrarch was not just inflouential in his versification but also in his language. Much of his humanistic language has become second nature to us but he invented it.
I rank this book as not only some of the graetest poetry but as one ofthe great works of Western llterature.
These "little songs" are highly readble and like a said before form a sort of novelistic story that I would highly recommend to not just poetry readers but all readers.