Petrarch's 'I Trionfi' in the English Renaissance

This is an intertextual study, which seeks to establish Petrarch's I Trionfi as a prominent element in the culture and literature of sixteenth- and seventeenth century England. I Trionfi is a quasi-allegorical poem in six parts, organized around the motif of the Roman military triumph. Since the Renaissance, it has been superseded in popularity by the sonnets, but evidence shows that in sixteenth-century England it was extremely widely read, far outstripping the Canzoniere in popularity.;Spenser's Epithalamion draws on I Trionfi's preoccupation with chastity and eternal union, its complex presentation of the dreamer/narrator, its emphasis on Orpheus, and its final apocalyptic vision, in creating a marriage poem which departs in distinctive ways from epithalamic tradition.;Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, both texts which are also concerned with marriage, set triumph against its antithesis, carnival, so as to deconstruct the power structures within and against which they were produced. Although their political backgrounds differ, in both plays the antithesis between triumph and carnival is also a gender conflict.;During the seventeenth century, as the political situation in England underwent massive changes, I Trionfi dropped out of fashion, and has remained more or less in obscurity ever since.;Elizabeth I drew on the fashion for Italian culture in general, and I Trionfi in particular, in creating an image for herself which enabled her to negotiate the problems inherent in her gender: in the sixteenth century, a female monarch was an anomaly. As, among other figures, the new Laura, she was able to exploit her femininity, and thereby avoid pressure to marry and relinquish her position of power. For her successor, James I, I Trionfi, already associated with monarchical power, became a significant element in the courtly aesthetic, particularly the Jonsonian masque, which both celebrates and legitimates the patriarchal hierarchy of the absolutist monarchy.