Petrarchan sonnet Italian sonnet form in the poems of his that were not translation and adaptation work. As a result, he is often credited for integrating the Petrarchan sonnet into English vernacular tradition. The form also gave rise to an "anti-Petrarchan" convention which may have revealed the mistress to be ugly and unworthy. The convention was also mocked, or adopted for alternative persuasive means by many of the Inns of Court writers during the Renaissance. The sonnet is split in two groups: the "octave" (of 8 lines) and the "sestet" (of 6 lines), for a total of 14 lines. The octave (the
Poetry sonnet), Michael Drayton, and Shakespeare, whose sonnets are among the most famous in English poetry, with twenty being included in the "Oxford Book of English Verse". However, the twists and turns associated with the "volta" allow for a logical flexibility applicable to many subjects. Poets from the earliest centuries of the sonnet to the present have utilized the form to address topics related to politics (John Milton, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Claude McKay), theology (John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins), war (Wilfred Owen, e.e. cummings), and gender and sexuality (Carol Ann Duffy). Further, postmodern authors such as Ted Berrigan and John Berryman