The humanist as reader: Petrarch's use of the writings of Augustine

In this study, I use approaches drawn from intellectual history and from reader-response theory in order to explore the ways in which Petrarch used the writings of Augustine in the formulation of his own cultural ideals. I thus contribute to ongoing scholarly debates about the relationship between Petrarch and Augustine first by focusing on Petrarch's use not of Augustine's "ideas" but of his words and of the authority of his name. This concrete focus isolates Petrarch's reliance on actual Augustinian texts from more general affinities between the two men, affinities which may or may not indicate influence. Secondly, using concepts developed by reader-response critics, I explore Petrarch's use of Augustine in light of the specific intellectual challenges which he faced as a poet and writer.;The dissertation argues first that Petrarch's appropriation of Augustine's words is only intelligible from the perspective of his struggle to legitimate the literary pursuits that were the core of his humanism. Secondly, I suggest that Petrarch's appropriation of Augustine initiated discursive practices which both defined early humanism and masked its most fundamental assumptions.;Augustine's texts were written to address questions vastly different from the ones Petrarch asked of them. Thus the first two chapters discuss the context in which Augustine lived and worked in an effort to imagine the range of meanings that his writings might have had for his contemporaries and for Augustine himself. The third chapter then explores Petrarch's reading practices insofar as these can be ascertained from his writings and his marginal annotations. The remaining three chapters analyze Petrarch's use of Augustine in his latin prose works.;Scholars have long been engaged in a reappraisal of the significance of "humanism" as it emerged and developed in the Renaissance. These reappraisals share a reluctance to take the humanists at their word without considering the context in which those words were spoken and the alternatives which those words silenced. This study seeks to contribute to this reappraisal by exploring the elisions made possible by Petrarch's use of Augustine in what is commonly regarded as the earliest formulation of a Renaissance humanist ideal.