Question

Read the lines from "Sonnet 292” by Petrarch. The eyes I spoke of once in words that burn, The arms and hands and feet and lovely face That took me from myself for such a space Of time and marked me out from other men; The waving hair of unmixed gold that shone, The smile that flashed with the angelic rays That used to make this earth a paradise, Are now a little dust, all feeling gone; The best summary of the central idea is that the speaker loved a beautiful woman who has died. thinks constantly about a beautiful woman. was scorned by a woman who is too beautiful for him. abandoned his friends to spend time with a beautiful woman.

Answer 1

I believe it is option A. He loved a beautiful woman who has died. 

Answer 2

loved a beautiful woman who has died.

Petrarch uses past tense verbs to show that the woman is no longer around. He says "I spoke of", "The waving hair...that shone, The smile that flashed..that used to make this earth a paradise". These past tense verbs indicate that these things are no longer. Even if the woman scorned him, she would still have all of these traits if she was alive. At the end of the sonnet, he also says that all these things about her are "a little dust" indicating that she is now nothing but dust.