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    Italiana

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    Yakini GazaEmpress Howell
    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet with an octave and sestet structure dealing with the theme of love. The title "Piazza Piece" suggests a setting in both Southern US and Italy, bringing a sense of antiquity and romance. The poem presents a brief dramatic scene where a gentleman unsuccessfully courts a lady at her trellis, with their words taking on symbolic meanings beyond a typical romantic exchange.

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    Italiana

    Uploaded by

    Yakini GazaEmpress Howell
    27 views1 page
    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet with an octave and sestet structure dealing with the theme of love. The title "Piazza Piece" suggests a setting in both Southern US and Italy, bringing a sense of antiquity and romance. The poem presents a brief dramatic scene where a gentleman unsuccessfully courts a lady at her trellis, with their words taking on symbolic meanings beyond a typical romantic exchange.

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    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet with an octave and sestet structure dealing with the theme of love. The title "Piazza Piece" suggests a setting in both Southern US and Italy, bringing a sense of antiquity and romance. The poem presents a brief dramatic scene where a gentleman unsuccessfully courts a lady at her trellis, with their words taking on symbolic meanings beyond a typical romantic exchange.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    27 views1 page

    Italiana

    Uploaded by

    Yakini GazaEmpress Howell
    This poem is a Petrarchan sonnet with an octave and sestet structure dealing with the theme of love. The title "Piazza Piece" suggests a setting in both Southern US and Italy, bringing a sense of antiquity and romance. The poem presents a brief dramatic scene where a gentleman unsuccessfully courts a lady at her trellis, with their words taking on symbolic meanings beyond a typical romantic exchange.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    Piazza Piece --I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying To make you hear.

    Your ears are soft and small And listen to an old man not at all; They want the young mens whispering and sighing. But see the roses on your trellis dying And hear the spectral singing of the moon; For I must have my lovely lady soon, I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying. --I am a lady young in beauty waiting Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss. But what grey man among the vines is this Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream? Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream! I am a lady young in beauty waiting. This is obviously a sonnet, a Petrarchan sonnet. It is Petrachan not only in form (an octave plus a sestet) but also in content (dealing with the subject of love). By choosing the timehonored form (sonnet) to treat the old-fashioned theme (love), Ransom successfully brings us back to the ancient time when courtly love prevailed as a literary convention in the West. If the poems form suggests remoteness in time, its title suggests remoteness in place. The word piazza denotes a porch or veranda in Southern U.S. where Ransom was born. But it also denotes an open square or public place in a city or town of Italy. From the poems text (esp. l. 5 & 1. 13), we may conclude that the former meaning is more pertinent than the latter. Nevertheless, the Italian-sounding word can never fail to strike into an English readers mind a Romantic aura of being in (Medieval or Renaissance) Italy. Thus, the title as well as the form seems to prepare the reader for experiencing something Italian. This Italian something is of course not just a pizza, although like a pizza it does have a foreign or queer flavor. Even a quick reading of the poem, I am sure, will leave the reader this impression: This Italian sonnet is quite unusual. It seems to be a little drama presenting vividly a scene in which a gentleman is courting a lady complainingly and without success at the present stage. And what makes this drama even stranger is: the two characters do not appear simply as two ordinary lovers; they appear rather to have some symbolic force.

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