Petrarch the Sad

If Petrarch had been a king, he would've been Petrarch the Sad. The three poems we read were solely about a beauty and love so great that always ended in death. The father of humanism, the ideas that sparked the Renissance, was preoccupied with love and loss. He clearly fell in love with a woman and then tragedy struck (the Black Death of 1348), resulting in her death and Petrarch never getting over her. As a poet, and someone who studied ancient literature for a living, he was not able to help writing poem after poem about her due to that being what he knew best. It's not like in today's society where people tell men to keep it inside and creativity is seen as being incredibly feminine. In some ways, the world has just flipped when it comes to gender equality.

Originally, men could do anything and everything and be considered perfect. Poetry? Classic. Painting? Such talent. Controlling a kingdom? Not a problem, they're manly enough. Women were cut from the outside world and usually 100% controlled by their husbands. They were not allowed to participate in, or even talk about, many activities or ideas. It was seen as not ideal for a wife to actually think for herself. Nowadays, thankfully, things can slightly different. Women are almost considered equal to a man (we have to weed out some of the older generations still) and can rise up to be a tom-boy, but men have actually been restricted in emotional and creative ways. They are not allowed to show feelings, write poetry, or do anything to do with emotions, otherwise, they will be seen as girly. They are told to hold back on many things while being forced into "boy" activities. I'm not saying they are controlled any where near the women were back in the 12th century, but I'm also not saying that they have it easy these days. Gender and role stereotypes are fluid and tend to change slightly over time, but there is a common theme of one surpressing the other.