My soul is wretchedly frightened

Of Guido Cavalcanti
Understanding

Paraphrase:
My soul is desperately(willingness: until degradation)terrifies
due to the assault suffered by the heart:conflict that takes place in the heart, [considered the seat of the soul.]
that he/she would feel (the soul)just a little Love closer to the heart than it usually is, would die.

This(the soul)like one who has lost all vitality,

for it has fled from the heart out of fear;

and who saw how she has escaped

He would certainly say: "This one has no life."

through the eyes came initially the battle

which immediately destroyed every force,
so that the mind was annihilated by the blow.

Anyone, even the happiest man,

if one could see spirits[that is the vital functions]run away,

he would cry out of his great sorrow.

Summary:
The sonnet is the dramatic representation of the battle that takes place in the heart. The soul, subjected to the assault of
heart, defeated and destroyed by love, is forced to abandon the heart and escapes from it, frightened and dejected.
leaving death in its place.
The assault, launched by Love through the eyes, has destroyed the mind and changed the character of the lover.

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2. Analysis

2.1. content level

Background theme:In the quatrains, the traditional theme of attack and the war of love. The tercets retrace the story.
(they are indeed, narrative), of the astonishment of a lover, struck first by the sight of the beloved woman and then
destroyed by the effects of love.

Party:(all narratives)
My soul is basely frightened loss of the inner balance of the lover (......keywords)
from the battle that it has from the heart: [b] the image of the battle
the chess player also feels a bit of love
closer to him than usual, she dies.
It is like that which has no value,
that is from fear parted from the heart;
and who saw how she has fled the escape of the amine that leaves the lover lifeless
I would say for sure: "This one has no life".

For the eyes came the battle of the impria, The eyes are the means of falling in love.
which broke every inherent value,
Yes, the blow truly destroyed the mind.
Whoever feels the most joy,
if you saw the spirits flee away,
of his great compassion he would weep.Love produces a substantial inevitable change in character.

of those who feel the emotion.

Thematic nuclei (most significant concepts of each part):

aloss of the inner balance of the lover.

The image of the battle
c: the eyes are the means of falling in love
Love produces a substantial inevitable change in the character of those who feel the emotion.

(Summary)
o The soul, subjected to the assault of the heart, flees frightened and dejected.
o The assault, carried out by Love through the eyes, has destroyed the mind and changed the character.
of the lover.

2.2. Structure and composition techniques of the text:

a. phonetic level:
The metric scheme and analysis of rhymes: the quatrains (ABBB, BAAA) tercets (CDD, DCC), one
exceptional scheme especially regarding the quatrains. The rhyme scheme eludes the
usual symmetries determining a more 'disordered' rhythmic pattern. In the first stanza
there is a rhyme between the II, III, and IV verses, in the second between the II, III verses and the IV, connected
from rhyme the last verse of the first quatrain and the first verse of the second; in the third stanza between the
II and III, rhyming with the first line of the last tercet, the latter rhyming between the last two.
version of the poem linked to the rhyme in the first line of the first tercet.

Sound figures: Alliteration sounds M and T and S last verse P sounds

Paronomasia: piety-crying
My soul is wretchedly frightened
of the battle that has it from the heart:
she also feels a bit of Love
closer to him than the sun, she dies.
It's like that which has no value,
it is for fear that has left the heart;
and who would see how she has fled
I would certainly say: "This one has no life."

For the eyes, the battle came dim.

that broke every inherent value,
yes, the blow shattered the mind.
Whoever feels the most joy,
if you could see the spirits flee away,
of his great pity he would weep.
Meaning relationship between rhyming words and sound figures:
Relevant in this sense is also the relationship between the expressions in blaming|Love|more (vv. 2-
The traditional theme of the assault and the war of love has its highest expression in
contrasting love and death emphasized not only at the thematic level but also by the rhyme
kissed "Love"/"more" (vv. 3-4), in reality made even stronger by the repetition of the whole
"love", obtained by preceding "more" with "ella", hence the phonetic link between the
two verses go beyond rhyme and play on the contrast between the same sound and meaning
opposite: "Love"/"she dies". Find expression, in the unusual asymmetry of the rhymes, the
upheaval of the soul: one should consider the strong relevance of rhyme A that starts from the initial verse
pass to the last three lines of the quatrains aligning "sbigotita", "partita", "fuggita", "does not have
life," that is, the words that express the dramatic condition of the soul, which concludes with
the idea of death.
b. metric-rhythmic level:
 typology, verse and rhythmic accent: The sonnet is a very common type of composition
formatted with a total of 14 lines of hendecasyllables and divided into four stanzas (two quatrains and
two tercets), with a fixed accent on the tenth syllable and two variable accents (on the 4th, 6th, 7th, or 8th syllable)
with a solemn, slow, and relaxed rhythm. Usually (not in this sonnet, though), the lines of the
the first two verses are linked by alternating or crossed rhymes, those of the tercets are organized
according to a variable scheme. In the sonnet, the first two quatrains constitute the Front,
while the tercets, the Sirma.
The Front is in turn divided into 4 feet (composed of 2 lines), while the sirma is made up of 2.
stanzas (three lines each).
Figure metrics:

My soul is terribly frightened. syneresis

from the battle that she has from the heart:
she feels a bit of love... sinalefe or A
...closer to him than usual, she dies. sinalefe or a
It's like that which has no value,
it is for fear of the heart departed;
and whoever saw how she has fled......
...I would say for certain: 'This one has no life.' sineresis ia
For the eyes came the battle in vain, sinalefe and o; a and
that broke every inherent value, synaeresis and the; and
yes, that the blow shattered the mind.
Whoever feels the most joy, sinalefe is e, synaeresis is uei,
It would see the spirits flee away,…
…of his great piety he would weep. sinteresis

enjambment: between 3 and 4, VII and VIII hypothetical construction verbs would see - would say and between 13 and 14
saw - crying.

c. morpho-syntactic level:

grammatical categories: isolated are the adjectives (dumbfounded, big) and the adverbs
(maliciously, immediately) prevalence of nouns and especially pronouns and verbs, for phonetic emphasis
Among the words, both for their metaphorical value, the verbs 'broke', 'came', and 'was built' stand out.
for which the poet has preferred the remote past, a time that denotes the action as clear and
completed.
Parataxis or hypotaxis: prevalence of parataxis due to the frequent coordinated conjunctions (but present
they are also the subordinate clauses to the 2 quatrain and 1 tercet)

punctuation: varied and numerous: “:”, “.”, “,”, “;”, “«»”.

word order: the syntactic construction is predominantly orderly.
syntax figures:
anaphora: vv. 3-6-10 repetition of 'that'
anastrophe: vv. 1-2-6-9-11-12-14 (inversion of order in the sentence)
antithesis: v.12 opposed to v.14 (joy feels - pity weeping)

d. semantic level:
parole chiave: Le parole chiave nel componimento sono: "anima" (I verso), "battaglia" (II e IX
v.), "core" (II v.), "mente" (XI v.), "more" (IV v.), "Amore" (III v.), “valore” (V, X v.).
semantic fields: related to war, death, physical and mental suffering for love.
Love (keywords soul, love, heart, value)
– Pain (vilely cowed, compassion, weeping, strutting, timidity)
– Death – (more, broke, blow)
isolated word: "joy" in line 12, as a situation opposite to that of the lover.

figures of meaning:
Metaphor. 2 and 9 (the battle, that is, the struggle between mind and heart in the soul as on a battlefield)
of battle, with wounded and dead and pain)
 Personification (to Love are attributed human physical characteristics of the god Eros who without having
care creates pleasure or pain, it strikes hearts through the eyes, just as in the verses of a
another stilnovist G. Guinizzelli "Love seizes me and no longer cares if it commits sin or not"
in the sonnet "your beautiful greeting and the gentle gaze," or in the same Cavalcanti in "You
for in your eyes you passed my heart” in verses 3 and 4 “look at the anguished life of mine that
sighing Love destroys her.
Hyperbole: v.4 (dies) - 6 - 10 amplification of a concept by exaggeration of the
quality (in this case of the heart capable of making the soul flee due to love)
Simile: v 5 explicit comparison between the condition of the animal as it is like one who has not
more life force, that is, like someone who is dying.
Metonymy: first tercet (transfer of meaning based on the abstract logical relationship)
"for the eyes came the battle"
Euphemism: last tercet, mitigation of a too harsh expression, that is death with 'if'
he saw the spirits flee away from his great compassion and pity.
periphrases: vital spirits (that is, feelings and senses)

e. relationship between themes and strophic-metric distribution (structure of the composition):

the structure of the sonnet features an interwoven arrangement of themes, in fact in the first quatrain and
in the first tercet the theme is the battle, while in the second quatrain and last tercet, the theme is the
flight of vital spirits.

2.3. register, lexicon, tone, style:The vocabulary used is easy to understand, the tone is dramatic, the style
clear, simple and plain typical of stilnovism.
2.4. genre of the text: lyrical poetry belonging to the Dolce stil novo movement.
2.5. elements of thought and poetics:
Around the life and personality of Guido Cavalcanti, we have many illustrious testimonies: they speak of him
Dante, Boccaccio, the chroniclers Dino Compagni and Giovanni Villani all agree in attributing to the poet the quality
of a philosopher (although I suspect of Averroist sympathies and, therefore, in the scent of heresy) and in emphasizing its greatness
of ingenuity. He was born in Florence around 1255, in one of the most important Guelph families of the municipality; his father,
Cavalcante Cavalcanti, whom Dante placed in Hell among the heretics because he was a follower of Epicurean doctrines, was exiled.
after Montaperti and returned to Florence in 1266; in that same year the marriage between Guido and was arranged
Bice degli Uberti, daughter of Farinata, leader of the Florentine Ghibellines and also placed by Dante among the heretics along with
Cavalcante. In Florence, Guido actively participated in the life of the commune, holding various positions; among other things, he did
part in 1284 and in 1290 of the General Council. The anti-magnate policy of the municipality of Florence which, with the
Justice Ordinances of 1293 excluded the highest social class from political offices, also affected
Cavalcanti who, like all the magnates of his condition, cannot participate in the political life of the commune
Florentine, remaining a victim of the true anti-magnate persecution that is expressed throughout the entire activity.
legislation of the Municipality in the second half of the Thirteenth Century. He is condemned to 'civil death', to total
political marginalization; or to a subordinate role of pure agitation or, worse, of passive, frustrating
observation.
In the struggles between the Whites and the Blacks, he sided with the Whites and found himself involved in violent clashes that opposed him.
especially at Corso Donati, one of the leaders of the Blacks who would have attempted to kill the poet, starting a cycle of revenge
and violent hatred. Because of these episodes for which he was held responsible, in 1300, the priors of the municipality, among them
Dante, who was part of that year, was exiled. Cavalcanti then took refuge in Sarzana, where he was struck.
probably from a malarial fever that he died from a few months later (August 1300), when he was already
returned to Florence.
Cavalcanti was a prominent figure in the Florentine intellectual scene, he was a friend of Dante, towards whom he exerted
a poetic teaching that is testified to us by the dedicatory poem of the Vita Nuova, by numerous rhymes of
correspondence, as well as from the praises expressed in De vulgari eloquentia. The cause is not entirely clear.
the estrangement of the two poets and the crisis of their partnership. In the Commedia, Dante mentions Guido twice:
when he meets his father, in Hell (X, 52-72), and in Purgatory (XI, 97).
Cavalcanti's songbook includes 52 compositions of certain attribution, of which 36 are sonnets, 11 ballads, 2
songs, 2 isolated song rooms, 1 motet. We lose track of the chronological order of composition of the texts that
we can distinguish and group only based on intonation and theme. They usually have a character
popular and sometimes joyous the ballads, while the sonnets develop, according to more serious tones and sometimes
tragic, the themes of the tradition of love lyric, widely embracing the lesson of Guinizzelli. To the two
songs are instead entrusted with the doctrinal discourse on love; frequent are the sonnets of correspondence that
they demonstrate how Cavalcanti was a central figure in the poetic dialogue of the late thirteenth century.
One of the key passages of Cavalcanti's poetics: love consists of an excess of delight and provokes
therefore insanity outsize, excess ira self-destruction.
an artist capable of moving in the realm of poetry with great technical and stylistic expertise, with a controlled
innovative capacity, with a calculated use of emphasis eof the dramatization.
2.6 comment: Cavalcanti confirms a tormented and painful conception of love. The experience of love is
a battle undertaken by the heart against the soul. The personifications tell of the destruction of personality.
of the lover and the annihilation of his reason. The lexicon, carefully selected, falls within defined and
coherent semantic fields (the battle and the vital forces) and outlines a psychological universe with strongly marked traits
original and unitary.
The metrical scheme (entirely based on four rhymes) - notes Contini - represents an isolated case in the
poetry of the Thirteenth Century: the quatrains (ABBB, BAAA) do not have the internal symmetry codified by tradition and
they assume the same imbalance of the tercets (CDD, DCC). The form of the text can therefore allude to the loss
of the inner balance of the lover. The subject appears dissociated and alienated: the parts of the body and the functions
the soul are in contrast with each other and give life to a theatrical representation with anguished tones and
dismay. The consistency and stability of the keywords are surprising: sighs, pain, fear, sorrow and
dismay, suffering and death, torment, tremor, weeping, despair, anguish, painful sighs,
dissolution (in You who passed the heart through my eyes)
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3. Overall Interpretation and Insights

3.1. interpret the text

Cavalcanti experiences Love as a devastating experience, which creates anguish and suffering in the poet.
In Cavalcanti's compositions, this anguished vision of love recurs constantly; They are a sort of
objective correlatives, projections, symbols of a psychic world dominated by astonishment, by pain, by
foreboding of death. Depersonalization, an internal tendency within the expressive canon of Stilnovo,
reaches in Cavalcanti extreme consequences.
Writing, poetry become places of recomposition of the unity of the self destroyed by catastrophic effects that
love brings with it. With what themes then does Cavalcanti's poetry pursue us? At least these: love seen
like a perpetual war with no possibility of redemption, the split of the self between ideal love and sensual love,
the theatricalization of the war of love with the staging of actors who are born from a dramatic, at times
ironic composition of the self.
Love seen as a war is not a novelty, even in the time of Cavalcanti, and it will be even less so later on with
Petrarch and his imitators. But in Cavalcanti it is not about the pains of love caused by correspondence or not.
of the woman. Instead, it is an obsessive and hammering analysis of the consequences that love has on the individual.
whether it is taken. The stakes are not the conquest of the woman but the inner unity of the self. Cavalcanti does not
it takes more than just praising women.
His songbook is not written to show happiness.
Eros and Thanatos thus remain the only contenders in the field. After all, among his contemporaries, Cavalcanti was
identified as epicurean, a term that at the time indicated both a propensity for carnal pleasures and atheism.
But beyond this, his rhymes and his melodious way of reasoning about love constantly refer us back to
obsessively to those upheavals. The desire for love can indeed be dangerous, the love relationship is
dangerous because it can dissociate the ego, disturbing it to the point of losing complete control of itself, its own balance
interiors. But, and this is crucial, those who abstain from love are also exposed to the same loss of balance!
From the last decade of his century, Cavalcanti suggests to us that the only way out is in the individual capacity to
governing conflict and unity of a self 'naturally' exposed to the double effects of love, the atrocious ones and the ...
exhilarating.
Effects
The unity of the loving subject is destroyed; it is, as I have already said, depersonalized. The reader does not find themselves
in the psychological folds of a specific individual who hopes, desires, suffers. Instead, it becomes aware of entities
physical, mental, fantastic or truly ghostly, characters of a theatrical drama always on stage, and
I am Soul, Heart, Mind, Vital Spirits, Love, Death, Fear. The theatricalization is achieved through
personification of feelings, faculties, even objects, as in the case of writing instruments, which
they act, speak, suffer like living beings. Soul, Heart, Mind on one side (an Averroist trilogy)
regarding the duality of the soul, which is reason, and of the heart, which is appetite, in Dante) and then a series of spirits and
spirits that are projections of the poet's moods, endowed with their own movement and feelings, spirits that
they flee, they tremble, they gather only to disperse again like a routed army. And all are
protagonist subjects and make the reader lose the unity of the lyrical self in a surreal fragmentation and dispersion. If
A fictional unity can be reached, suggested by our awareness that everything occurs in the body.
The same as the poet, because it is the organs of the body that become the scenery, the heart and the eyes first of all, and it is in the
territory defined by them where feelings, personified in those spirits, move in a back and forth motion
paroxysmal and distressing, in a closed and suffocating space. What strikes is the disintegration of the personality of
a subject that feels and writes. Paradoxically, the woman is distant. She has neither features nor a name.
Love is an accident, not a substance, and as such it can be dangerous like a disease.
its power can be deadly if rational abilities are hindered,
No man taken by love can assert that he is alive because he does not have secure mastery over himself.
theme of war. Love, which is passion and delirium and which arises under the influence of Mars, brings war and the
War is within the interior of man, in the senses and in the head of the individual, and it is a conflict from which one cannot withdraw.
outside, it is necessary to live it to the fullest and learn to master it.
3.2. intertextual comparison
the attention quickly shifts to the sufferings endured: "You who passed through my heart with your eyes / and awakened my mind"
who was sleeping,/ look at my anguished life,/ which Love destroys while sighing//”. Love, the poet continues
...by cutting of such great value,
trapped in the body, she has a terrible jolt upon seeing, in the left part of that body, the heart struck to death: 'Yes
the blow struck straight at the first stroke / that the soul, trembling, shook itself / seeing the heart dead on the left side//
(sonnet, XIII). Nor on the other hand does Cavalcanti have a transcendent vision of the relationship of love; it remains
safely confined within the earthly limits to which it is bound by its philosophy that conceives the individual soul as
mortal. Love is essentially lust and desire, which are in perpetual conflict with abstractions and
idealizations of the mind.
This premonition of death, which in Cavalcanti is always related to desire, is constantly renewed.
together with astonishment, fear, and heaviness, to use one of his terms, in fact, as mortal as they may be
If love wounds are present, the attraction towards the woman continues to renew itself.
The decomposition of the loving self into subtle spirits and gentle little spirits, all frightened and anguished and all defeated and
dispersed, certainly creates a dramatic dimension.
The consistency and stability of the keywords are surprising: sighs, pain, fear, grief, and astonishment.
suffering and death, torment, trembling, weeping, despair, anguish, painful sighs, decay (in You that
through the eyes you passed my heart

3.3. consider the extratextual aspects

Since Madonna is unknowable and does not trigger in man particular processes of spiritual elevation and so on.
Less religious transcendences, the vortex of the senses set in motion by appears dominant throughout the songbook.
the pleasure that the woman provides. A dangerous pleasure.
References to medieval images that pierce the eyes and hearts are frequent in medieval art, the
bright contrasts and bold colors stimulate the senses and prompt the imagination to perceive in the bright blues, ochres,
Vermigli, references to burning passions, to inner turmoil, to emotional conflicts like in a field of
battle. Inner dramas unraveled and fulfilling as in Guinizzelli, in whose verses one perceives the salvific effect and
almost miraculous of the gaze, but exhaustively resolved only by Dante, for whom it is only lady Beatrice,
in the guise of an ethereal and divine woman, to unite man with God and to ideally reconnect the destroyed threads of
its spirit and fully recompose its self.