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KENNEDY, W.J., Authorizing Petrarch. Cornell University Press, New York, 1994. XIII,301p. Original green cloth with dust wrps. ‘Authorising Petrarch’ offers a remarkable erudite study of Petrarch’s complex interpretive legacy. This book explores the intersection between Petrarch’s ‘Rime sparse’ and a vast array of Renaissance texts. (…) The first three chapters focus on the canonization of the Rime sparse in Italy. Chapter 1 focuses on the rhetorical and stylistic features that contribute to the ambiguity of the Rima sparse. Chapter 2 examines the differing responses of ten of the most influential Italian Petrarch commentators (…) The diverse perspectives offer a wealth of opinion on issues pertaining to amatory relationships, gender roles, class differences, and national identities. Their glosses in turn enable the further exploration of similar issues on the part of Petrarchist. The balance of the book is devoted to an examination of adaptations of the Petrarchan model made by Pietro Bembo, Vittoria Colonna, and Veronica Gambara in Italy, Pernette du Guillet and Louise Labé in France, and Edmund Spenser in England. (…) While Kennedy’s approach incorporates many insights gleaned from theoretical readings, among them Freud and gender studies, these observations do not drive the readings. Ever attentive to the specific historical circumstances in which each commentator or poet wrote, to metrical, syntactical, and stylistic features of the poetry, and to Renaissance printing and editorial practices, Kennedy’s readings remind highly attuned to the ‘site’ of Petrarchism.’ (DEBORAH PARKER in Renaissance Quarterly, 1999, pp.500-501). € 40.00 (Antiquarian) ISBN: 9780801429743