Understanding Petrarchan Sonnets

The Petrarchan Sonnet is named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch, an expressive poet of fourteenth-century Italy. Petrarch didn’t imagine the poetic form that bears his name. Or maybe, the normally credited originator of the sonnet is Giacomo da Lentini, who made poetry in the artistic Sicilian tongue in the thirteenth century.

The word “sonnet” itself originates from the Italian word “sonetto,” which itself gets from the Latin “suono,” signifying “a sound.” Many Italian poets investigated the form, from Dante Alighieri to Michelangelo. Petrarch, considered one of the establishing researchers of the Italian Renaissance, likely procured his eponymous credit as a perfecter of the current sonnet form.

The Petrarchan sonnet is characterized by the accompanying center components:

It contains fourteen lines of poetry.

The lines are partitioned into an eight-line subsection (called an octave) trailed by a six-line subsection (called a sestet).

The octave follows a rhyme plan of ABBA. This implies the primary, fourth, fifth, and eighth lines all rhyme with each other. The second, third, 6th, and seventh lines also rhyme with each other.

The “Crybin” variation on the Petrarchan sonnet contains an alternate rhyme conspire for the initial octave: ABBA CDDC.

The sestet follows one of two rhyme plans. The more normal is a CDE plot (where the ninth and twelfth, 10th and thirteenth, and eleventh and fourteenth lines rhyme).

The other sestet rhyme conspire is CDC (where the ninth, eleventh, twelfth, and fourteenth lines rhyme; and the 10th and thirteenth lines rhyme). It is now and then called the “Sicilian sestet,” named for the vernacular utilized by Petrarch himself.