Of course both dramatists
are bound by historical considerations to make the outcome of their
plays tragical, but practically all other expositions of the poet's
double affections are likewise tragic. Cale Young Rice chooses another
famous Renaissance lover for the hero of _A Night in Avignon_, a
play with this theme. Here Petrarch, in a fit of impatience with his
long loyalty to a hopeless love for Laura, turns to a light woman for
consolation. According to the accepted mode, he refuses to tolerate
Laura's name on the lips of his fancy. Laura, who has chosen this
inconvenient moment to become convinced of the purity of Petrarch's
devotion to her, comes to his home to offer her heart, but, discovering
the other woman's presence there, she fails utterly to comprehend the
subtle compliment to her involved, and leaves Petrarch in an agony of
contrition.
Marlowe, in Josephine Preston Peabody's drama, distributes his
admiration more equally between his two loves. One stimulates the
dramatist in him, by giving him an insatiable thirst for this world; the
other elevates the poet, by lifting his thoughts to eternal beauty.
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