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[Chapter 3] A Cat May Look at a King
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Published:September 2021
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Abstract
Petrarch is remembered today as the author of Italian love poetry. However, most of his works were written in Latin. This chapter focuses on Petrarch’s 1361 address to King John II of France, in which Petrarch defends his decision to address the king and his court in Latin. Latin was the diplomatic language most often used in Europe during the late fourteenth century. At the same time, the vernaculars were gaining in popularity, as languages of literature and diplomacy. King John himself supported a vernacular translation movement that saw the Bible along with a number of Latin historical works translated into French. The chapter recounts Petrarch’s exchange with King John in order to illustrate the emotional attachment that a courtier might have to his mistress tongue (for Petrarch, Latin). It discusses the history of the term “cosmopolitan language” as a generic term for a learned language of literature and culture. Finally, it uses Adorno’s notion of late style to analyze Petrarch’s devotion in his old age to the Italian vernacular – an emergent language of literature during Petrarch’s life, which he treated as the “late work” of Latin.
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