- But in carrying out my research on Renaissance literature and gender, I’ve been struck by how many of that period’s love poems were not for lovers.
- These sonnets, composed for friends and family, are not just beautiful; they’re also a reminder that love and Valentine’s Day aren’t exclusively for couples.
The love sonnet is born
- The sonnet was invented in 12th century Italy as a 14-line poem with 11 beats per line and various rhyming patterns.
- Its originator, Giacomo da Lentini, was a poet in the Kingdom of Sicily who had been inspired by older Arabic and French poetry.
- He penned the collection for a woman named Laura, whom he loved from afar in life and after her death.
Playing with sonneteering stereotypes
Thomas Wyatt is thought to have written the first English sonnets, in the early 16th century. His poems strongly relied on Petrarch; some of the best known, like “Whoso list to hunt,” are quasi-translations of the Italian poet’s work. Writing a half-century later, Shakespeare changed the form, ending his sonnets with a rhyming couplet, giving birth to the “Shakespearean sonnet.”
- Many valentines will find themselves compared to a summer’s day or swearing there can be no impediments between the marriage of true minds.
- In any case, it introduces an element of queerness, in that there’s homoeroticism and a challenge to what society deems natural.
For friends and lovers
- A number of his poems were composed for friends, with several of them for the Florentine poet Sennuccio del Bene.
- The short poem mixes his love and grief for both people, his beloved and his friend.
- Take the verses of Venetian writers Orsatto Giustinian and Celio Magno, who published their poetry in a single book in 1601.
- That doesn’t cancel out the homoerotic tension in the men’s poems to each other, but it does make classifying their sexuality challenging.
Sororal sentiment
- Existing in a single copy in a library in Siena, Italy, is a joint poetry collection written by two sisters, Speranza Vittoria and Giulia di Bona.
- They lived with their mother and four other sisters.
- The poems traded between Speranza and Giulia are brighter, exhibiting an abundance of love and admiration.
Love is big
- They serve as reminders of what the love poem can be.
- If writers could describe different types of love during the Renaissance, why limit what we can envision for ourselves?
Shannon McHugh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
