20.6.11

Petrarch vs. Shakespeare

Two giants of their time, the Italian revolutionist and Shakespeare, who could be the most famous man in the world (after Walt Disney) battling it out. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will I chose? Lets start with the numbers; Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 long narrative poems, while Petrarch 1 epic poem, 366 sonnets and various other works in Latin. Alright so far it's 1-all. While Shakespeare was considered the British father of poetry, Petrarch was considered the Father of Humanism, which as far as I know is like being the King of the Renaissance, so I think Petrarch wins that round. But Petrarch is hardly known today amongst the general public, but Shakespeare is quite well known. I mean who's heard of a Petrarch festival? They both helped to revolutionize the sonnet though, each developed their own method  of writing these simple, effective works of writing. Petrarch loved ABBA, he used it to help design his rhyme scheme, while Shakespeare used a simple (boring) rhyme scheme of AB AB etc... Lame. I expected better from the "Father of English poetry".  Both were used quite often after they were long gone, but those writers who wanted a challenge preferred to attempt the Petrarchan sonnet. But...
Who would win?
Petrarch
Its hard to compare these two awe-inspiring authors, but Petrarch told me to "Take a Chance on Me", that "The Winner Takes All". It's hard to reason with that logic.

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