Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry The Sonnet Sonnet Comparison Chart Italian Verse
The Petrarchan Sonnet, also called the Italian Sonnet is one of the two dominant sonnet forms, the other being the English or Shakespearean sonnet. Both have weathered the corruption of time. The Petrarchan Sonnet came on the heels of the first sonnet form, the Sicilian Sonnet which is rarely seen in today's literature. The more popular Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet built on the Sicilian form and converted the original alternating rhyme octave to an octave made up of 2 envelope rhymed quatrains and the alt