Petrarch's Letter To Posterity

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a convention as “A way in which something is usually done, especially within a particular area or activity” (“Definition of Convention in English”). Conventions appear in every aspect of life, in both the past and the present. Conventions can be simple, such as setting a horror film on a stormy day or portraying women in media as a damsel in distress. Conventions tend to be more complex, and therefore more overlooked by the general public, in works of art and works of literature.
One thing particularly important to note about each piece of art or literature is who created it. Usually this is easily discerned by looking for a signature, likely found in one of the corners of a painting or on the title page …show more content…
This is appropriate for a letter to posterity as a biography, but does not quite coincide with Petrarch's apparent modesty. When he states that no one will have heard of him, he implies that no one would care enough about his works and his life to remember him. If no one cared to remember Petrarch, what was the point of writing his life story for the future? Writing to no one is futile. He had to firmly believe that someone in the future would read his writings, otherwise there would be no point to writing to future generations. This is an abuse of the mock humility topos because he is blatantly stating that his work will be read in the future by many people. He tries to disguise his pride with humility but his cockiness shines through the artificial …show more content…
Typically when a person says that he or she rushed in writing something, it implies that the person would like the reader to forgive any flaws due to the speed at which it was written. This implication appears to stand true for Petrarch, yet the reader objectively knows that there are no rushed errors in the writing; the writing was not hurried at all but carefully crafted for a number of years (Redford,