Lyric/Poetry in the Renaissance

Abstract

The study of Renaissance lyric poetry cannot be separated from the linguistic hegemony of Latin in the fifteenth century and the gradual establishment of the vernacular in the sixteenth century. In fact, in the fifteenth century, vernacular lyric poetry flourished side by side with Latin lyric poetry, in which the revival of the classical poets interacted with vernacular sources and most of all with Petrarch. However, by the sixteenth century, vernacular lyric poetry was firmly established, divided into two opposing trends: the petrarchist, which found its highest expression in the theories of Pietro Bembo, and the anticlassicist and antipetrarchist.