The Sonnets of Shakespeare in the Tradition of Petrarch.

Both poetics geniuses, William Shakespeare and Francesco Petrarch are connected forever in the literary realm, though the men themselves lived centuries apart. The sonnet form prestigiously employed by William Shakespeare, as well as the famous poet-lover dilemma that most of his sonnets regard, came to him from a gifted writer who lived centuries before, the Italian Francesco Petrarch. Although Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), a contemporary of Martin Luther and Henry VIII, first introduced Petrarchan love …

…makes mention of Petrarch, though he is indeed satirizing once more the tradition of courtly love. Romeo, at the opening of the play is thinking of his love for the unattainable Rosaline and is mercilessly, even bawdily mocked by Mercutio. After the Romeo first encountered Juliet, Mercutio conceives that Romeo is the quintessential courtly lover, composing love sonnets in the style of Petrarch: "Now is he [Romeo] for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in" (2.4.40-1)