Petrarchan sonnet Petrarchan sonnet The Petrarchan sonnet is a sonnet form not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets. Because of the structure of Italian, the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet is more easily fulfilled in that language than in English. The original Italian sonnet form divides the poem's 14 lines into two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet. The rhyme scheme for the octave is typically ABBAABBA. The sestet is more flexible. Petrarch typically used CDECDE or CDCDCD for the sestet. Some other possibilities for the sestet include
Sonnet 131 Sonnet 131 Sonnet 131 is a sonnet written by William Shakespeare and was first published in a 1609 quarto edition titled "Shakespeare's sonnets". It is a part of the "Dark Lady" sequence (consisting of sonnets 127–52), which are addressed to an unknown woman usually assumed to possess a dark complexion. The sonnet, like the others in this sequence, addresses the "Dark Lady" as if a mistress. It references allegations from unspecified others that her "black" complexion makes her unattractive and rebuts these, but in the final two lines turns the compliment into a backhanded one by admitting that "In nothing