Petrarchan Sonnet
Quick answer: The Petrarchan sonnet splits 14 lines into an octave and a sestet, with a volta between them. See the rhyme scheme, famous examples and writing advice.
The Petrarchan sonnet, also called the Italian sonnet, is a fourteen-line poem divided into an eight-line octave rhyming ABBAABBA and a six-line sestet rhyming CDECDE or CDCDCD. It takes its name from Francesco Petrarca, the fourteenth-century Italian poet whose sequence to a woman he called Laura made the shape famous across Europe. The defining feature is the volta, the turn of thought that arrives with line nine.
Poets choose this form when they want an argument in two unequal halves: a problem stated at length, then a response that has less room and therefore more pressure. The octave asks, the sestet answers. Because English has fewer rhymes than Italian, the ABBAABBA octave is genuinely hard in English, which is part of the appeal for poets who like resistance.
How It Works
The octave uses only two rhyme sounds across eight lines, folded into two envelope quatrains, ABBA ABBA. The sestet loosens the grip with two or three new sounds. The turn between them is structural, not decorative: whatever the octave establishes, the sestet must do something to it.
An invented miniature shows the hinge: 'All week the letters sat unopened by the door...' might close an octave of avoidance, and the sestet could begin, 'But grief is patient; it can wait for spring.' The shift in stance, from evasion to admission, is what the white space between line eight and line nine exists to hold.
Where You Will See It
Milton's sonnet on his blindness runs its despair through the octave and lets patience speak in the sestet. Wordsworth's 'The World Is Too Much with Us' spends eight lines on what we have lost and six on a pagan daydream of getting it back. Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning in 'How Do I Love Thee', and later Edna St. Vincent Millay all worked the Italian pattern hard, and Millay's early sonnets are a masterclass in making the strict octave sound like conversation.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Bank your rhyme words before you draft. List eight to ten words on each of your two octave sounds and check they are words you would actually use; if the A-rhyme list is all abstractions, pick a different sound. Draft the sestet first if the octave intimidates you, since knowing where the poem lands makes the approach easier to build. Above all, make line nine earn its position: a reader should feel the poem change weight there even before noticing why.
What poets can take from this
- Choose octave rhyme sounds with plenty of common English words, such as -ight or -ay, before you commit.
- Treat line nine as a second opening; some poets even start it with But, Yet, or And yet.
- Keep the sestet's rhyme scheme flexible; CDECDE and CDCDCD are both traditional.
- Avoid ending the poem with a couplet, which pulls the form towards the English sonnet's snap.
- If the octave feels padded, cut your weakest line and rebuild; two strong quatrains beat four adequate ones.
Try it yourself
Write a Petrarchan sonnet in which the octave describes a place you cannot return to and the sestet explains what you carry from it. Let line nine begin with a verb.
Questions
What is the difference between a Petrarchan and a Shakespearean sonnet?
The Petrarchan divides into an octave and sestet with the turn at line nine, rhyming ABBAABBA CDECDE. The Shakespearean uses three quatrains and a couplet, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and often saves its turn for the final two lines.
Does the Petrarchan sestet have a fixed rhyme scheme?
No. CDECDE and CDCDCD are the most common, and other arrangements appear. The main tradition avoids ending on a couplet, though poets have broken even that rule.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.