Petrarchism and Anti-Petrarchism in the Love Poetry of Théophile de Viau

Petrarch’s Canzoniere considerably influenced love poetry in the European Renaissance. The theme of an unfulfilled love and a repertoire of rhetorical figures expressing the ups and downs of that love engendered during the sixteenth century a lyrical movement called Petrarchism. In the first decades of the seventeenth century, however, Petrarquism became a rather fragmentary lyrical discourse. Théophile de Viau uses Petrarquism and Antipetrarchism in order to create a libertine love poetry.