Year 7 have been studying Petrarch’s life and sonnets. They learnt about his overwhelming unrequited love for Laura, a married woman he saw in church and never spoke to. Despite never talking to her, she inspired him enough with her heavenly beauty that he wrote 366 sonnets about his feelings for her, creating a poem structure that we still know today as the Petrarchan sonnet. Although it has some challenging rules that must be adhered to, this did not prevent Year 7 from writing Petrarchan sonnets of their own.
The rules of a Petrarchan sonnet are as follows:
- structure is an octave (eight lines) followed by a sestet (six lines)
- volta (turning point, where the mood or perspective changes) at the start of the sestet
- rhyming pattern (ABBA ABBA CDE CDE)
- iambic pentameter (each line has ten beats of stressed/unstressed syllables)
- use of religious terms to deify the subject
This is slightly more pleasingly presented below, thanks to some excellent work from Naria…
The students were asked to write a sonnet about somebody perfect that they loved, and everyone decided to write about their mum. (Ilario was initially going to dedicate his sonnet to Wonder Woman, but decided his mum was better.)
Below is an example of a sonnet, written by Corentin. After having read it for its sheer beauty, can you see if it accurately meets the sonnet criteria devised by Petrarch?
The study of Petrarch’s sonnets leads us nicely towards Shakespeare, who like Corentin and his poetic classmates, emulated Petrarch’s sonnet. Shakespeare, however, made some slight alterations to create the Shakespearean (or Elizabethan) sonnet, which year 7 will study after Christmas.
Talking of which, merry Christmas to you all, from Year 7 and me.
