Analysis of Petrarch’s Sonnet 134 Essay

Based on the personas love that is unreciprocated by his beloved, the Poet illustrates in this sonnet, an internal conflict in the persona. The wholly bitter tone establishes a holistically integrating theme of being torn apart for love and also an automatic teller machine of histrionic resentment engorged with Petrarchs hyperbolized emotions. Divided into an octet and a sestet, which are respectively divided into two quatrains and two triplets, the sonnet follows a unappeasable formula of end-stopped lines and medial caesurae I find no peace and have no arms for war (l. 1) The use of lineation in this sonnet adds to the conflict in the poem as tropic figures of speech that insinuate a sense of paradox are used ubiquitously oxymora and antitheses are used to tell ideas separated by the medial caesurae My jailer reachs not, nor locks the door, (l. 5) gives further evidence to the point postulated, how can a jailer not lock yet not open a door simultaneously? The end-stopped line s and the medial caesurae suggest a sense of finality and possibly a disheveled conjure up of emotion as the abrupt pauses break the flow of the recitation and reflect the disturbances in the personas emotions, to me the fact that the poem keeps cycling forward as the paradoxical revolve that it is, intimates an anguished continuity.Life is a conflict. That is just the way that it is. The octet pivots into the sestet through a Volta that does not propose a solution to the emotional conflicts exclusively rather states why the Poet must suffer so, and it is proclaimed rather blamefully, that it is his lady who has gifted him with such torment for you my lady am I in this state (l. 14) the change in syntax here serves to intimate an overtly dramatic tone as well as bring emphasis to I, hinting a bruise to the poets ego. It is common knowledge that a Petrarchan sonnet traditionally has the rhyme scheme abba abba cde cde but it is clear that this is not the case here. Using an un conformable rhyme scheme abab abab cde cde, the Poet corroborates the inconsistent emotions of the persona, wavering towards extremes. The poem is dominated by the rubato iambic pentameter that most sonnets are expected to have. The regularity of the iambic pentameter results in a continuous feeling it is a meter of acceptance, as the true nature of life is not different, it too is continuous and one must accept it. just it is not without exceptions.