Substituting for Laura: Objects of Desire for Renaissance Women Poets

Abstract

For the many women who wrote poetry in the sixteenth century, as for their contemporary male poets, Petrarch provided the openly acclaimed model. His Rime show up both through their topics and through the direct citation of their phrases. But for women, the central theme of devotion to Laura presented particular problems. Petrarch's Laura has at least three major aspects. First, she is a woman and the object of sexual desire. As such she is evoked as a physical being even in her absence and after her death. Petrarch scatters throughout his poems references to her hair, eyes, cheeks, neck, shoulders, arms, breast, hands, feet, and general membra. Whether he imagines her as a human with petals falling on her lap, or a laurel tree whose arms have become branches, or an idolo scolpito [sculpted idol], her hair and eyes replaced by gold and topaz, she is a physical object of contemplation. The chief emphasis is not only on her starry eyes, but also on her hair; for she is not only a heavenly guide, but equally an earthly snare and entanglement. Second, after her death, Laura is a heavenly spirit who might, if the poet would only heed, guide him from a worldly love towards the love of God. Third, Laura becomes a symbol, through her name, for glory the ancient glory of Rome, or the modern glory of the poet and for poetry, to which the poet records his unflagging devotion. In this manner, she becomes a projection of his goals for himself. The second and third aspects were naturally much easier for women to adopt than the first. Women were already under moral scrutiny for writing at all, and certainly for writing about love; for a woman to versify her passionate love