The Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet divides its fourteen lines into an eight-line octave rhyming ABBAABBA and a six-line sestet rhyming CDECDE or CDCDCD, with a volta, Italian for turn, marking a shift in the poem's argument, tone or subject at the octave-sestet break. Named for its greatest practitioner, the Italian poet Petrarch, whose sonnets to Laura set the model for centuries of European love poetry, the form was carried into English in the sixteenth century by Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose translations and imitations of Petrarch introduced the sonnet to English readers.
Facts
Place of OriginItaly; the form takes its name from the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch), though it was developed not by Petrarch himself but by a string of Renaissance poets. 1 StructureFourteen hendecasyllabic lines in two parts: an octave (commonly rhymed ABBAABBA) followed by a sestet (commonly CDECDE or CDCDCD, among other patterns). 1 Notable ExampleWilliam Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room," a Petrarchan sonnet about the sonnet form itself. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Poetry Foundation
Wyatt's translations and imitations of Petrarch introduced the sonnet form into English poetry for the first time, keeping the Italian octave-and-sestet structure.
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
The Petrarchan sonnet is the original form the general Sonnet entry describes.
Form Of Genre
Influenced
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Italy, originated there.
Sources
1. Petrarchan Sonnet (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)lead section
The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is a type of sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets.
Lead section, first sentence
The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is a type of sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets.
Lead section, second paragraph
The original Italian sonnet form consists of a total of fourteen hendecasyllabic lines in two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet.
Form section, sestet variations
as in Wordsworth's "Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room," a sonnet about sonnets
View the Source Poetry Foundation
Poetry Foundationeducation/glossary/sonnet
The Petrarchan sonnet, perfected by the Italian poet Petrarch, divides the 14 lines into two sections: an eight-line stanza (octave) rhyming ABBAABBA, and a six-line stanza (sestet) rhyming CDCDCD or CDECDE.
- Associated With: Petrarch
View the Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University PressAssociated With: Sir Thomas Wyatt
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