F1013 Dante, Petrarch and their contemporaries

For us, living in the postmodern world, the ideas that values are culturally relative, that language constrains thought, that man\'s soul is neither unified nor transparent are part of what we take to be obvious. Yet, everything obvious had its heretical moment of birth, being born as heresy. In the case of theses ideas, that moment was the age of Dante and Petrarch. The course, then, focuses on the emergence of relativism, subjectivity, and self-consciousness in the fourteenth century. We shall read Dante\'s thought on language, explain his interest in the Italian language as a marker of a cultural and illuminated society, and discuss his critique over contemporaneous poets and his program for poetic renovation. From Dante we will turn to Petrarch\'s thought on language and uncover the subversive theological implication of his new linguistics. A good number of classes will be devoted to a close reading of Petrarch\'s Secret or the Soul\'s Conflict with Passion. In this most profound and insightful text Petrarch confronts his sinful desire for fame and carnal love, addressing continuously his split self and incessant oscillation, always in torment, between sacred and secular values. Petrarch\'s secrets will locate a door between us and him: Understanding Petrarch\'s ethical and existential conflicts, and exploring the fragmentary nature of all his experiences, we may come closer to ourselves and understand better the problems and sensibilities that dominate our present postmodern culture.