Petrarchism at Work

William J. Kennedy is Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Comparative Literature at Cornell University. He is the author of several books, including The Site of Petrarchism: Early Modern National Sentiment in Italy, France, and England and Authorizing Petrarch.

• Introduction: The Marketplace of Mercury Part One: Petrarch and Italian Poetry1. Petrarch as Homo Economicus 2. Making Petrarch Matter: The Parts and Labor of Textual Revision 3. Jeweler's Daughter Sings for Doge: Gaspara Stampa’s Entrepreneurial Poetics 4. Incommensurate Gifts: Michelangelo and the Economy of Revision Part Two: Pierre De Ronsard and Pléiade Aesthetics1. Polished to Perfection: Ronsard’s Investment in Les Amours 2. Ronsard Furieux: Interest in Ariosto 3. Passions and Privations: Writing Sonnets like a Pro in Les Amours de Marie4. The Smirched Muse: Commercializing Sonnets pour Hélène Part Three: Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Economy of Petrarchan Aesthetics1. To Possess Is Not to Own: The Cost of the Dark Lady and the Young Man 2. Polish and Skill: Will’s Interest and Self-Interest in Sonnets 61–99 3. Owning Up to Furor: The "Poets’ War" and Its Aftermath in Sonnets 100–1264. Shakespeare as Professional: The Economy of Revision in Sonnets 1–60 Conclusion: Mercurial Economies

Kennedy's command of the source materials and close readings of poetic variants are exceptional. With Petrarchism at Work he has written another authoritative and original study of Petrarch's legacy that will greatly impact theeld.(Renaissance Quarterly) Invites debate, reflection, and further contributions on a widening variety of textual corpora. This fine book has much to recommend it, especially to English-language students of Renaissance literature and history who seek to weigh the importance of one of Renaissance Europe's principal literary idioms as its distinctive forms appear in a representative variety of national contexts.(Renaissance and Reformation)