“Love found me completely helpless,” says François Petrarch in one of his highly acclaimed sonnets, making of course reference to his beloved but inaccessible Laura (Pétrarque 2068). That may be an understatement. François Petrarch and Garcilaso de la Vega found themselves so completely absorbed in their respective infatuations that they wrote little else, revealing much to their readers about their ideas regarding the trials and tribulations of love . Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Both poets share a similarly pessimistic view of love. Petrarch, in his third sonnet, uses warlike metaphors to recount his experience, claiming that he was not "on his guard" and "did not defend himself" and was therefore struck "by a arrow” (Petrarch 2068). By clearly stating that we must protect ourselves from love, Petrarch alludes to its less than desirable effects. He also directly states that the day he first met Laura was the day his “misfortunes began” (Petrarch 2068). In his 189th sonnet, Petrarch describes the “steadfast wind of sighs,” the “rain of tears,” and the “mist of disdain” that he encounters while sailing through the figurative “harsh sea” of love (Petrarch 2071). . By comparing the trials of navigation to the trials of passion, he further underlines the many difficulties that love engenders. Even the title of his collection of sonnets, Rime Sparse, which translates as “scattered rhymes,” alludes to his problems: love has left him broken and scattered. Likewise, many of de la Vega's poems seem to focus on the darker side of love. In his first sonnet, he laments having “given [his] heart to one who could destroy and ruin it if she wanted” (de la Vega 2072). Here, rather than appreciating the immense joy and happiness that love can bring to those who fall under its spell, de la Vega instead chooses to worry about the devastation he would face if his relationship ended . Somewhat hyperbolically, he attests that his lover's ill will “will kill him if it can” (de la Vega 2072). By attributing such a final and undesirable ramification to love, de la Vega succeeds in highlighting the negative aspects of this intense emotion. This sense of repercussion is also evidenced in his 10th sonnet, when he notes that "the joys distributed little by little" by his lover were taken away from him in just "an hour", leaving behind only "sorrow" (de la Vega 2073). Additionally, the dark diction de la Vega uses in these two sonnets, such as "bitter", "lost", "ruin", "death", "grief", "alone", "grief" and "dark", adds to the general feeling that love is more depressing than joyful (de la Vega 2072-2073.) Another parallel between Petrarch's and de la Vega's conceptions of love is their highly romanticized and seemingly superficial views toward their objects of love. 'affection. When depicting his lover, each poet focuses primarily on her immensely beautiful outward appearance, making no mention of her intelligence or personal beliefs. In Petrarch's 126th sonnet, Laura is said to possess a "charming body", "angelic breasts", "pretty eyes", and "fair locks", among several other attractive physical qualities, but little other information about they are provided (Pétrarque 2070). ). Similarly, de la Vega's love has a "blond face", hair that "glitters" and is made of "the purest gold", and is "so beautiful, so thin and.”