Petrarchan+Sonnet

Structure, Metrical Requirement, Rhyme Scheme Requirement, Simple, Pivot Requirement A sonnet is a fourteen line poem that has a pivot. The Petrachan or Italian sonnet is broken into the octave and the sestet. There is a pivot, a change of meaning or direction, that occurs in a sonnet at the beginning of the sestet. Italian 14 14
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 * **Schematic:** ||  || The rhyme scheme is: abbaabba cdecde or cdcdcd. ||
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 * **Schematic:** ||  || The rhyme scheme is: abbaabba cdecde or cdcdcd. ||
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A Petrarchan sonnet is divided into and eight line octave, rhyming abba abba, followed by a six line sestet, rhyming cdecde.


 * c d e c d e**
 * OR**
 * c d c d c d**
 * OR**
 * c d e d c e**
 * c d c d c d**
 * OR**
 * c d e d c e**
 * c d e d c e**
 * c d e d c e**

The octave poses a problem that is usually answered by the sestet. This is also known as an Italian Sonnet. This example, //On His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-three// by John Milton,

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, (a) Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! (b) My hasting days fly on with full career, (b) But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. (a) Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, (a) That I to manhood am arrived so near, (b) And inward ripeness doth much less appear, (b) That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. (a) Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, (c) It shall be still in strictest measure even (d) To that same lot, however mean or high, (e) Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven. (d) All is, if I have grace to use it so, (c) As ever in my great Task-master's eye. (e)