Italian Sonnets

Rhyme Scheme 

The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet:

The basic meter of all sonnets in English is iambic pentameter.

The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two different groups of rhyming sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octave and rhymes:

a b b a a b b a

The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can have either two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety of ways:

c d c d c d

c d d c d c

c d e c d e

c d e c e d

c d c e d c

• Sonnets are usually love poems

• Each line has 10 syllables (iambic pentameter)

• A "turn" (or "volta") occurs after line 8

***********************************************************************************************

More Information About Sonnets 

source

The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern) is flexible. In strict practice, the one thing that is to be avoided in the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or ee), as this was never permitted in Italy, and Petrarch himself (supposedly) never used a couplet ending; in actual practice, sestets are sometimes ended with couplets (Sidney's "Sonnet LXXI given below is an example of such a terminal couplet in an Italian sonnet).

The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections by the two differing rhyme groups. In accordance with the principle (which supposedly applies toall rhymed poetry but often doesn't), a change from one rhyme group to another signifies a change in subject matter. This change occurs at the beginning of L9 in the Italian sonnet and is called the volta, or "turn"; the turn is an essential element of the sonnet form, perhaps the essential element. It is at the volta that the second idea is introduced, as in this sonnet by Wordsworth:

"London, 1802"

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient

English dower Of inward happiness.

We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up,

return to us again; And give us manners,

virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a

Star, and dwelt apart; Thou hadst a voice

whose sound was like the sea:

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

The sonnet can be thematically divided into two sections: the first presents the theme, raises an issue or doubt, and the second part answers the question, resolves the problem, or drives home the poem's point. This change in the poem is called the turn and helps move forward the emotional action of the poem quickly, as fourteen lines can become too short too fast.

2 Kinds of Italian Sonnets

Most sonnets are one of two kinds (English or Italian):

Italian (Petrarchan)

this sonnet is split into two parts, an octave and a sestet. The octave is composed of two envelope quatrains rhyming "abba abba" (Italian octave). The sestet's rhyme pattern varies, though it is most often either "cde cde" (Italian sestet) or "cdc dcd" (Sicilian sestet). The turn occurs at the end of the octave and is developed and closed in the sestet. Over the years, the Italian sonnet has been the most favored type of sonnet. 

"Sonnet: The Poet at Seven" by Donald Justice

And on the porch, across the upturned chair,

The boy would spread a dingy counterpane

Against the length and majesty of the rain,

And on all fours crawl under it like a bear

To lick his wounds in secret, in his lair;

And afterwards, in the windy yard again,

One hand cocked back, release his paper plane

Frail as a mayfly to the faithless air.

And summer evenings he would whirl around

Faster and faster till the drunken ground

Rose up to meet him; sometimes he would squat

Among the bent weeds of the vacant lot,

Waiting for dusk and someone dear to come

And whip him down the street, but gently home.

Notice the turn at line 9, "And summer evenings . . ." and how it develops and closes the poem by the last line. Justice changed the form a bit, rhyming the sestet "ccd dee," or viewed as couplets "cc dd ee."

A very skillful poet can manipulate the placement of the volta for dramatic effect, although this is difficult to do well. An extremeexample is this sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney, which delays the voltaall the way to L 14:

"Sonnet LXXI"

Who will in fairest book of Nature know

How Virtue may best lodged in Beauty be,

Let him but learn of Love to read in thee,

Stella, those fair lines, which true goodness show.

There shall he find all vices' overthrow,

Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty

Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly;

That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.

And not content to be Perfection's heir

Thyself, dost strive all minds that way to move,

Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair.

So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,

As fast thy Virtue bends that love to good.

"But, ah," Desire still cries, "give me some food."

Here, in giving 13 lines to arguing why Reason makes clearto him that following Virtue is the course he should take, he seems to be heavily biassing the argument in Virtue'sfavor. But the volta powerfully undercuts the arguments of Reason in favor of Virtue by revealing that Desire isn't amenableto Reason.

There are a number of variations which evolved over time to make iteasier to write Italian sonnets in English. Most common is a changein the octave rhyming pattern from a b b a a b b a to a b b a a c c a,eliminating the need for two groups of 4 rhymes, something not alwayseasy to come up with in English which is a rhyme-poor language.Wordsworth uses that pattern in the following sonnet, along with aterminal couplet:

"Scorn Not the Sonnet"

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,

Mindless of its just honours; with this key

Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody

Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;

A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;

With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;

The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf

Amid the cypress wtih which Dante crowned

His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land

To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp

Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand

The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew

Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

Another variation on the Italian form is this one, byTennyson's older brother Charles Tennyson-Turner,who wrote 342 sonnets, many in variant forms.Here, Turner uses an a b b a c d c d e f f e f epattern, with the volta delayed until the middleof L9:

"Missing the Meteors"

A hint of rain--a touch of lazy doubt--

Sent me to bedward on that prime of nights,

When the air met and burst the aerolites,

Making the men stare and the children shout:

Why did no beam from all that rout and rush

Of darting meteors, pierce my drowsed head?

Strike on the portals of my sleep? and flush

My spirit through mine eyelids, in the stead

Of that poor vapid dream? My soul was pained,

My very soul, to have slept while others woke,

While little children their delight outspoke,

And in their eyes' small chambers entertained

Far notions of the Kosmos! I mistook

The purpose of that night--it had not rained.

English (Shakespearean)

 This contains 3 Sicilian quatrains and one heroic couplet at the end, with an "abab cdcd efef gg" rhyme scheme. 

The turn comes at or near line 13, making the ending couplet quick and dramatic. Not many modern writers have taken to writing the Shakesperean sonnet. e. e. cummings, not known to the general public for sonnet writing, supplies us with a Shakespearean sonnet example:

)when what hugs stopping earth than silent is

more silent than more than much more is or

total sun oceaning than any this

tear jumping from each most least eye of star

and without was if minus and shall be

immeasurable happenless unnow

shuts more than open could that every tree

or than all his life more death begins to grow

end's ending then these dolls of joy and grief

these recent memories of future dream

these perhaps who have lost their shadows if

which did not do the losing spectres mine

until out of merely not nothing comes

only one snowflake(and we speak our names