Sixth Grade
Worksheets
Petrarch the Poet
Francesco Petrarca was born in 1304 in Arezza. As he grew up, his parents hoped for him to be successful and encouraged him to study law. Petrarch did study law, and he did become successful - but not as a lawyer.
In 1326, Petrarch's father died. Petrarch returned to his family home, which was now at Avignon, and went to work. He did clerical work. It was not very demanding, and it left him plenty of time to do what he liked best. What he liked to do best was to read and to write.
His first major work, Africa, told the story of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the victorious Roman general in the Second Punic War. For this poem, he used lines of hexameter, the popular form for epic poems. Hexameter lines consist of six feet, with each foot containing two syllables.
Africa became very popular, and Petrarch was on his way to becoming a celebrity.
Petrarch also wrote many letters, some to his friends and some that would never be sent. These letters, written to long-dead Greek and Roman philosophers, expressed Petrarch's thoughts after reading their ancient manuscripts. They were something like the reading-response journals that students write today.
