Laura, the beloved of the Italian poet Petrarch and the subject of his love lyrics, written over a period of about 20 years, most of which were included in his Canzoniere, or Rime. Laura has traditionally been identified as Laura de Noves of Avignon (now in France), a married woman and a mother; but since Petrarch gives no clues as to who she was, several other Lauras have also been suggested, and some critics believe there was no actual Laura at all. Petrarch was supposed to have seen Laura for the first time in St. Claire Church in Avignon on April 6, 1327. In his poetry she appears to give him little encouragement, but his love for her became a lifelong obsession, even after her death on April 6, 1348.
Petrarch wrote more than 300 Italian sonnets to Laura, as well as other short lyrics and one long poem. Those included in his Canzoniere are divided into Rime in vita Laura (263 poems) and Rime in morte Laura (103 poems). The poems treat a variety of moods and subjects but particularly his intense psychological reactions to his beloved. Many of his similes, such as burning like fire and freezing like ice, beautifully stated in the sonnet beginning “I find no peace, and all my war is done,” were to be frequently repeated by the sonneteers of Elizabethan England and later became poetic clichés. Some of the poems express the very simple, human wish to be with her and to be treated kindly. After Laura’s death Petrarch’s poems continued on the same themes, expressing his sorrow and describing her return to him in dreams.
Earlier Italian poets had written splendid sonnets expressing their love for a particular woman, but it was Petrarch’s poems that gave rise to a whole generation of translators and imitators in Europe and particularly in England, where his example inspired the great love-sonnet cycles of Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, and William Shakespeare. See also sonnet.