Petrarchan sonnet

The Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two main parts, called the octave and the sestet.

The octave is eight lines long, and typically follows a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, or ABBACDDC.

The sestet occupies the remaining six lines of the poem, and typically follows a rhyme scheme of CDCDCD, or CDECDE.

The octave and the sestet are usually contrasted in some key way: for example, the octave may ask a question to which the sestet offers an answer. In the following Petrarchan sonnet, John Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," the octave describes past events--the speaker's previous, unsatisfying examinations of the "realms of gold," Homer's poems--while the sestet describes the present--the speaker's sense of discovery upon finding Chapman's translations: Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse have I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.