What is an Octave, a Sestet and a Volta?

Question

Im trying to figure out their meanings...I know that the rhyme scheme but it would help if I better understood the way this sonnet is broken down.

Answer 1

In a sonnet of the Petrarchan or Italian style (as opposed to the English or Shakespearean style) the first eight lines are the octave, the final six are the sestet.

The volta of a sonnet in not quite so easy to define. It's not accurate to say that the word refers to the final couplet, although in a Shakespearean sonnet that is often where the volta occurs. The word "volta" means "turn," and refers to the point in a sonnet at which the poem, so to speak, turns around to look at and comment upon, maybe even to contradict, all the previous lines. As I said, this does typically happen after the first 12 lines of a Shakespearean sonnet, but in a Petrarchan sonnet it might happen at the start of the sestet, and in any sonnet it can happen anyplace towards the end of the poem.

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What is an Octave, a Sestet and a Volta?
Im trying to figure out their meanings...I know that the rhyme scheme but it would help if I better understood the way this sonnet is broken down.

Answer 3

An octave has 8 lines. In Contrast to the octave poems, the sestet poem has only 6 lines.

Answer 4

octave:

1. Music. a. a tone on the eighth degree from a given tone.
b. the interval encompassed by such tones.
c. the harmonic combination of such tones.
d. a series of tones, or of keys of an instrument, extending through this interval.

2. a pipe-organ stop whose pipes give tones an octave above the normal pitch of the keys used.
3. a series or group of eight.
4. Also called octet. Prosody. a. a group of eight lines of verse, esp. the first eight lines of a sonnet in the Italian form. Compare sestet (def. 1).
b. a stanza of eight lines.

5. the eighth of a series.
6. Ecclesiastical. a. the eighth day from a feast day, counting the feast day as the first.
b. the period of eight days beginning with a feast day.

7. one eighth of a pipe of wine.
8. Fencing. the eighth of eight defensive positions.
–adjective 9. pitched an octave higher.


Sestet:

A group of six lines of poetry, especially the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.
A poem or stanza containing six lines.


volta:

Count A·les·san·dro /ˌɑlɛsˈsɑndrɔ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ah-les-sahn-draw] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation, 1745–1827, Italian physicist.
2. a river in W Africa, in Ghana, formed by the confluence of the Black Volta and the White Volta and flowing S into the Bight of Benin. ab. 250 mi. (400 km) long; with branches ab. 1240 mi. (1995 km) long.

Answer 5

sonnet = 14 lines.
octet = first eight lines
sestet = last six lines
volta = the final (two lines) couplet

wikipedia it for more, because rhyme schemes differ between various important sonneteers.