Etymology
Origin of Petrarchan
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It’s also true that, in order to portray the kinds of psychic shifts required by the Petrarchan volta, Lock would have had to allow herself the kind of invention that was forbidden to women.
From The New Yorker • Aug. 5, 2019
Post-debate analysis will reveal that all of her answers will have been composed as perfect Petrarchan sonnets.
From Washington Post • Apr. 18, 2017
A favorite scholarly idea is that these questions mistake Shakespeare’s real purpose, which was to invent a group of characters in order to play with Petrarchan conventions.
From The New Yorker • Jun. 29, 2015
Lady Dacre has shown much grace and ingenuity in the passages of our poet which she has versified; but she could not transfer into English those graces of Petrarchan diction, which are mostly intransferable.
From The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch by Campbell, Thomas
This strict "Petrarchan" form has endured for six centuries.
From A Study of Poetry by Perry, Bliss
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
