Dante’s Beatrice and Petrarch’s Laura Dante Alighieri’s Beatrice and Francesco Petrarca’s Laura influenced the lives and writings of these two great authors. Francesco Petrarca, better known to the literary world as Petrarch, met the woman who would become the driving force behind his writing on Good Friday, April 6, 1327. In a Church of Santa Chiara in Avignon, Petrarch first lay eyes on Laura de Sade, wife of Hugues de Sade (Jerrold 19). Though …showed first 75 words of 939 total…

…showed last 75 words of 939 total…comparisons have been made between Beatrice and Laura. They live for us solely in their poet’s representation; no single fact of the life of either would have existed for us otherwise (Jerrold 249). Beatrice is glorified by the dignity and nobility of him who worshipped her, while Laura, in life at least, had to suffer from the restless sensibility of her lover (Jerrold 163). Laura embodies ideal Womanhood as Beatrice becomes Divine Philosophy (Jerrold 275). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**