ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The conceit of Petrarchan sonnets in the Elizabethan period very often involves sex, which is traditionally and rather coyly referred to in the text books as ‘courtly love’. However, to imagine these characters as self-pitying lovers is radically to misunderstand them.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Petrarchan conceit, which was especially popular with Renaissance writers of sonnets, is a hyperbolic comparison most often made by a suffering lover of his beautiful mistress to some physical object-e.g., a tomb, the ocean, the sun.

Detailed explanation-3: -For example, “Roses danced in the apples of her cheeks” or, “Her eyes shined brighter than the moon.” Petrarchan conceits show you the beauty and grace of their love through magnanimous comparisons.

Detailed explanation-4: -Love caught me naked to his shaft, his sheaf, The entrance for his ambush and surprise Against the heart wide open through the eyes, The constant gate and fountain of my grief: How craven so to strike me stricken so, Yet from you fully armed conceal his bow!

Detailed explanation-5: -Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet (1595) incorporates distinctively Petrarchan notions of unattainable and unrequited love in order to illustrate distance between beloved object and lover, as well as the consuming despair of unreciprocated desire.