The Petrarchan sonnet is a two-stanza poem with an octave, a sestet and a total of 14 lines. The Petrarchan sonnet has an a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, c-d-e, c-d-e rhyming system.
It was the first kind of sonnet to be introduced into England. It was first translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early 1500s. This type of sonnet got its name from Italian poet, Francesco Petrarca, a 14th-century Italian. Francesco Petrarca was a humanist, scholar and poet from Italy. Petrarca, better known as Petrarch in the English-speaking world, wrote a total of 366 sonnets as well as numerous letters and treatises on a variety of subjects. His most beloved work, however, was an epic poem written in Latin called “Africa.” Despite his love for the poem, few others have held it in such high regard. Such was the quality of his writing that Pietro Bembo, in the 16th century, used Petrarch as well as Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio as inspiration for his development of modern Italian.
It was the first kind of sonnet to be introduced into England. It was first translated by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early 1500s. This type of sonnet got its name from Italian poet, Francesco Petrarca, a 14th-century Italian. Francesco Petrarca was a humanist, scholar and poet from Italy. Petrarca, better known as Petrarch in the English-speaking world, wrote a total of 366 sonnets as well as numerous letters and treatises on a variety of subjects. His most beloved work, however, was an epic poem written in Latin called “Africa.” Despite his love for the poem, few others have held it in such high regard. Such was the quality of his writing that Pietro Bembo, in the 16th century, used Petrarch as well as Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio as inspiration for his development of modern Italian.