Petrarchan poems are divided into two sections so the poet can ask questions and reach an answer.Thematically, theoctave, or first eight lines, often makes a proposition, which asks a question or describes a problem. Then thesestet, or final six lines, proposes a resolution or solution. It’...
basis for the claim that the work was pirated has always been that there is something unsavoury in the subject matter of the poems. Nearly three quarters of the 154 sonnets are addressed to a man. The remaining ones mostly describe rather lurid episodes in his infatuation for a dark woman, ...