Customer Reviews

On Religious Leisure

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In high school and college classrooms, Francesco Petrarca has been touted as the father of modern humanism, a proto-atheist fighting to free people's minds from the superstition of religion and to return to the ideals of classical Greece and, especially, Rome. While elements of this characterization are true (it is hard to deny Petrarch's heartfelt admiration for Rome, its virtues, and its pagan saints), this little-read book allowed me to see the deeper reality of Petrarch's spirituality.

Within the pages of this book, one is able to see Petrarch's spiritual life in process. He is a non-monastic outsider looking in on a lifestyle he admires, a lifestyle that he consciously rejected in his youth. However, following the death of Laura, his paramour, and a visit to his brother Gherrardo in a Cluniac monastery, Petrarch began to reevaluate his spiritual priorities. Ultimately, this book stands as a testimony to the depth of his own religious renaissance. While he clearly admires many of the virtues of classical civilization, he is consistently critical of the hypocrisy that infiltrated much of ancient Greco-Roman life. Even his beloved Cicero is not immune to Petrarch's reproach.

In many ways, this book reveals many parallels between Petrarch and St. Jerome regarding his spiritual development. Both dedicated their youngest years to the study of classical pagan/agnostic literature, imbibing the aesthetic and moral principles that guided the thought and composition of the ancient writers. However, as they reached maturity, both suddenly came to believe that their former lives were lives of error, not so much because they had been studying immoral literature, but that they had been neglecting the most important literature for their lives--the Bible. Both continued to make frequent reference to pagan literature, but it began to take a secondary role in their intellectual lives. While at first they believed the Bible to be aesthetically inferior, both came to a deeper appreciation of the varying aesthetics that dominated the conventions of its composition.

The primary difference between Petrarch and Jerome, as I see it, is that Jerome's legacy as a spiritual thinker is secure, while Petrarch's has been ignored by a literary and artistic world more concerned with the aesthetically more influential Canzionere than the religious works that he wrote in Latin. Petrarch's role as a spiritual thinker is central to On Religious Leisure. His ultimate purpose in this work is to impress upon his brother's co-monastics the nobility of their monastic life, and the blessing that their religious leisure constitutes. He admiringly admonishes them throughout to "take time" to see God as God, and to persevere in their battle against worldly pleasures.

As a person who has become interested in medieval spirituality, I found Petrarch's insights to be surprisingly pious for someone of his reputation. While I found the rationalism of his religious faith to be a bit more intransigent than I could personally endorse, it provides a valuable counterpoint to the mystical theology that was so prevalent in the medieval Catholic Church (and today as well). Among the book's demerits is Petrarch's addiction to tangential discussions. His forays into classical history and literature tend to diverge significantly from the topic at hand, and while interesting, make the book difficult to follow in some places.

I found Shearer's translation to be very readable. I don't read Latin, so I can't comment on its accuracy, but the language is both accessible and thoughtful. I also found her division of the book into chapters useful, as it would be a difficult text to plow through without some sort of marker's against which to gauge one's progress. The footnotes to Petrarch's quotes were also very helpful, giving a visual demonstration of the literary context in which Petrarch intended his work to be received. While there were some clear biblical and literary allusions that were not noted in this edition (which I believe to be the only English edition of this work), perhaps a more scholarly second edition will emend those oversights.

Overall, I found this book to be well put-together and enjoyable to read. But beware, lest you find your preconceptions challenged.