Tuesday, April 6, 2010

On this day in 1327

On this day, the poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) first saw (or claimed to have seen) the woman he called Laura. From sonnet 211:

In 1327, at exactly
the first hour of the sixth of April,
I entered the labyrinth, and I see no way out.
Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac noted the day’s Petrarchan importance and made me remember that I once translated these lines. Three of the strangest lines in all poetry, I’d say.

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