The Cult of Solitude

Abstract

It was not until the late sixteenth century in England that personal preference and the particular nature of the individual began to take precedence over duty and obedience to the collective principle of nature, the common denominator of the characteristics most widely shared among men. This movement can be seen as early as the fourteenth century in Italy, however, in the person of Petrarch (1304–74).1 In both his life and his work Petrarch was a great innovator. He was the first to write a book, De Vita Solitaria, on the subject of the pleasures of secular solitude. Although the incidental praise of solitary places or dispraise of the court can be found before Petrarch, no one before Petrarch had thought fit to devote an entire treatise to the joys of solitude per se without other motivation than the delights it had to offer. Petrarch also initiated the idea that the individual selfwas a worthy topic to write on, again simply for its own sake rather than for exceptional heroism or outstanding circumstances. Introspection reached an unprecedented level in his Secretum, which firmly established the link between the inward, self-analytical character and the desire for solitude, a link that was to be made repeatedly by later writers.