A Petrarchan sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in two parts. The first is an eight-line octave rhyming ABBAABBA, and the second is a six-line sestet that often rhymes CDECDE or CDCDCD. Between them comes the volta, or turn, where the poem changes direction. The form takes its name from Francesco Petrarch, the fourteenth-century Italian poet who made it famous.
This guide covers where the form came from, how its two parts and its turn work, the meter in Italian and in English, and how it differs from the Shakespearean sonnet.
In This Article
- Petrarch, Laura, and the Canzoniere
- The Octave and the Sestet
- The Volta: Where the Poem Turns
- Meter in Italian and in English
- How the Form Came Into English
- Petrarchan Versus Shakespearean
- Key Takeaways
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Follow the Argument Through the Turn
Petrarch, Laura, and the Canzoniere
Petrarch did not invent the sonnet poem, but his Canzoniere gave it a model that later poets copied for centuries. The collection contains 366 poems, most of them sonnets. Many of them return to Laura, a woman the speaker loves and cannot reach. Her distance became the center of a European tradition of idealized, unattainable love.
That distance offered one use for the Petrarchan two-part structure. A speaker caught between longing and refusal could state a problem in the octave and try a response in the sestet. Poets also used other patterns, and later writers kept the frame while exploring subjects beyond love.
The Octave and the Sestet
The Italian sonnet structure divides fourteen lines unevenly. The octave, lines one to eight, usually rhymes ABBAABBA: two enclosed quatrains built on only two rhyme sounds. Italian has many words with matching vowel endings, so this is manageable in Italian. In English it is much harder, which is why English poets sometimes loosen it.
The octave sets something out. It states a situation, a desire, or a difficulty, and its tight rhyme keeps returning to the same ground. The sestet, lines nine to fourteen, brings in new rhyme sounds and varies more. CDECDE and CDCDCD are the most common patterns, but other arrangements of two or three rhymes appear too. The new sounds signal new thinking.
The table below shows how each part works and what it asks of a writer.
Petrarchan sonnet structure: writing tasks, turns, and rhyme choices
| Part or structural choice | Lines and rhyme | Writer’s task | Structural strength | Common pitfall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Octave | Lines 1–8; typically ABBAABBA | Develop a central thought or tension through specific images or claims | Enclosed rhymes bind the opening argument | Leaving the sestet with no meaningful development |
| Volta | Usually at line 9; a rhetorical turn, not an extra line | Change the speaker’s stance through a rebuttal, realization, or new perspective | Makes the sestet respond to the octave | Adding “but” without changing the thought |
| Sestet: CDECDE | Lines 9–14; three rhyme sounds, each used twice | Shape the response across two corresponding three-line groups | Links lines 9/12, 10/13, and 11/14 through rhyme | Letting rhyme dictate an unearned conclusion |
| Sestet: CDCDCD | Lines 9–14; two alternating rhyme sounds | Develop the response through an alternating rhyme sequence | Links lines 9/11/13 and 10/12/14 through rhyme | Repeating the octave’s complaint without developing it |
The Volta: Where the Poem Turns
The volta is the hinge between octave and sestet, and it traditionally falls at line nine. It is a change in the thinking. A question gets an answer, a complaint meets consolation, or a general claim turns personal. New rhymes usually arrive at the same moment, but rhyme alone does not make a turn.
John Milton's sonnet on his blindness, "When I consider how my light is spent," shows how flexible the turn can be. The octave lays out his fear that he can no longer serve God. The turn begins midway through line eight with “but Patience,” and Patience's reply, “God doth not need,” begins partway through line nine, within the sestet. Milton keeps the two-part shape and lets the argument cross the border slightly early.
Meter in Italian and in English
Petrarch wrote in hendecasyllabic lines: normally eleven metrical syllables, with the final stress on the tenth. That tenth-syllable stress defines the meter; the syllable count can vary. Many Italian words end on an unstressed syllable, which typically follows the final stress.
English poets adapted the form to iambic pentameter: five metrical feet following a predominantly unstressed-stressed pattern. A regular line has ten syllables, but poets vary the rhythm and may add an unstressed eleventh syllable, called a feminine ending. English and Italian lines are close in typical length but built differently.
How the Form Came Into English
Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, brought Petrarchan poetry into English in the sixteenth century by translating and adapting Petrarch. Wyatt's "Whoso list to hunt," a version of one of Petrarch's sonnets, keeps the ABBAABBA octave but ends its sestet with a rhyming couplet. That was an early case of an English ear reshaping the Italian sonnet form.
Later poets kept the stricter shape. Milton used it in the seventeenth century. William Wordsworth returned to it in the early 1800s, and his "Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room" argues that a tight form can feel like freedom. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, which includes "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," brought the form back to its oldest subject, love.
Petrarchan Versus Shakespearean
The Shakespearean sonnet uses the same fourteen lines differently. It typically rhymes ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, which gives it three quatrains and a closing couplet. Its turn often comes late, in that couplet, which can sum up the three quatrains or push back against them.
This changes the shape of the thought. The Petrarchan sonnet form gives eight lines to an opening thought and six to its development or redirection, so the two parts are nearly balanced. The Shakespearean pattern builds through three steps and lands in two lines. It also uses seven rhyme sounds against the Petrarchan four or five, which makes it easier to write in a language with fewer matching endings.
Key Takeaways
- The form organizes fourteen lines into an eight-line octave and six-line sestet.
- ABBAABBA is the characteristic octave pattern; sestet patterns vary.
- The volta marks a change in the poem’s thought or perspective.
- English adaptations commonly use iambic pentameter; Italian originals use hendecasyllables.
- The form accommodates subjects well beyond its historical association with love.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you give me an example of an Italian sonnet?
Wordsworth's "The world is too much with us" illustrates ABBAABBA CDCDCD. Line numbers and rhyme letters are added:
1 A: The world is too much with us; late and soon,
2 B: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
3 B: Little we see in Nature that is ours;
4 A: We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
5 A: This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
6 B: The winds that will be howling at all hours,
7 B: And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
8 A: For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
9 C: It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
10 D: A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
11 C: So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
12 D: Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
13 C: Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
14 D: Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Lines 1–8 form the octave; lines 9–14 form the sestet. The turn comes within line nine at “Great God!”: complaint becomes a wish.
Did Petrarch invent the form or popularize it?
He popularized it. The sonnet began at the Sicilian court of Frederick II in the thirteenth century and is usually credited to Giacomo da Lentini. Petrarch's Canzoniere became the model later poets imitated, which is why the form carries his name.
Can the sestet use more than one rhyme pattern?
Yes. CDECDE and CDCDCD are the most common, and other arrangements of two or three rhymes also appear. Strict Italian practice generally avoids ending on a couplet. English poets such as Wyatt sometimes used one anyway.
Must the sestet resolve the octave's problem?
No. The sestet typically develops or redirects the octave's thought; it need not answer a problem. It can continue an idea, question it, deepen it, or approach it from a new angle. Milton's blindness sonnet reaches a resolution through Patience's reply. Other sonnets leave their tension open.
Why do English adaptations commonly use iambic pentameter?
Pentameter was an established English verse line, and its usual length comes close to the Italian hendecasyllable. The adaptation follows English stress patterns and allows rhythmic variations, including an extra unstressed ending.
Follow the Argument Through the Turn
When reading an example, mark the two parts, trace the end rhymes, and look at what changes at the volta. When drafting your own, start with a tension worth reconsidering, so that the final six lines give the opening eight a different perspective.