Petrarch in English after 1750

This essay analyses the reception of Petrarch from 1750 to the present day. In Romantic Britain there was a Petrarchan revival in which many scholars, translators and poets were involved: Thomas Gray, Sir William Jones, Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, and the major Romantics. It lasted well into the Victorian age and interested figures like E. Barrett Browning and C. Rossetti. Though the Petrarchan vogue declined in the late 19th century, some important 20th-century poets were attracted by the Petrarchan tradition, which in the last 30 years has drawn the attention of academic translators again.