Laura's Vacillations: Castelvetro's Treatment of Paradox in Petrarch's Rerum vulgarium fragmenta

Abstract

This article explores Castelvetro's treatment, in his commentary on Petrarch's Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, of the paradox of the pleasure and pain the speaker seems to feel simultaneously in his experience of loving. The argument is that Castelvetro, in comparison to other fifteenth- and sixteenth-century commentators on Petrarch's Rime, more consistently and insistently explains such paradoxes not as indications of some mysterious mingling of pain and pleasure that lovers might feel but rather as indications of the different times of the speaker's amatory experience, an experience that features Laura's vacillating attitude toward him, and hence his alternating joy and anxiety. This reading of paradox depends on Castelvetro's interpretation of the Rvf's love narrative, an interpretation that views Laura as not wholly displeased with the speaker's love but as one who vacillates between favoring and disapproving of the speaker's affection.