Directions: Copy the notes on the Italian sonnet onto your notes page. Read the notes so you understand the difference between the Shakespearean and Italian sonnets. 

Copy and paste the poem "Puritan Sonnet" onto your laptop.  (Scroll down the page to locate the poem.) Answer the questions posted under June 10th on the English 2 AALP page and create a hypertext for the poem.  Make certain all hypertexts are posted by Tuesday, June 11th.

Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet:

The Italian sonnet (sonnet means "little song") is a 14 line lyric poem written in iambic pentameter.  It has a different rhyme scheme than the English sonnet because it is easier to find rhymes in the Italian language.

The rhyme scheme for the Italian sonnet is:

ABBAABBA = 1st 8 lines are called an octave.

CDECDE = next 6 lines are called a sestet. (A poet may use any variation of these last 6 rhymes, so they may use CDCDEE, or CCDDEE, etc.)

The octave (1st 8 line of the poem) normally presents a situation or a problem.

The sestet (next 6 lines of the poem) presents a solution or a reaction to the situation.

Puritan Sonnet

Elinor Wylie

Down to the Puritan Marrow of my bones

There's something in this richness that I hate.

I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.

There's something in my very blood that owns

Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate¹

^{Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.}

^{I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,}

^{Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves;}

^{That spring, briefer than apple blossom's breath,}

^{Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,}

^{Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,}

^{And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.}

^{1. spate: sudden downpour}