D. Italian Sonnet

The first sonnets were written by Italian poets in the early 13th century,but Petrarch has given his name to its most legitimate form. Indeed, the Petrarchan sonnet is by far the most widely used of the three popular sonnet forms.

It will be observed that a two-part division of thought is invited and leads to the "turn" of thought in the more varied sestet. The effect of the abbabba octave is truly remarkable. It is actually a blend of 3 brace-rhyme quatrians, since thee middle 4 verses, whose sounds overlap the others and echo their pattern, impress the reader with a similar rhyme pattern, thus, abbaabba. Normally, tooo, a definite pause is made in thought development at the end of the eighth verse, serving to increase the independent unity of an octave that has already progressed with the greatest economy in rhyme sounds. Certainly it would be difficult to conceive a more artistically compact and phonologically effective pattern. The sestet, in turn, leads out of the octave and, if the closing couplet is avoided, assures a commendable variety within uniformity to the poem as a whole.

Some of the most stereotyped features that characterize this type of Petrarchism are the exaggerated description of the physical and moral beauty of one's lady-loved. These so-called "Petrachan conventons" are apt to include such expressions as "golden-tresses," "staar-lie…eyes," "cheeks (of) fair roses," "teeth of pearly white," "voice more than human," "angelic/…form," etc. (from Petrarch's Sonnets IX, XXXI, and LXI).