A sestina is a fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines
each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The words that end each line of
the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following
stanzas, rotated in a set pattern. The invention of the form is usually
attributed to 12th-century troubadour Arnaut Daniel; after spreading to
continental Europe, it first appeared in English in 1579, though sestinas were
rarely written in Britain until the end of the 19th century. It remains a
popular poetic form, and many continue to be written by contemporary poets.
History The oldest-known sestina is "Lo ferm
voler qu'el cor m'intra", written around 1200 by Arnaut Daniel, a troubadour of
Aquitanian origin; he refers to it as "cledisat", meaning, more or less,
"interlock". Hence, Daniel is generally considered the form's inventor, though
it has been suggested that he may only have innovated an already existing form.
Nevertheless, two other original troubadouric sestinas are known, the
best known being "Eras, pus vey mon benastruc" by Guilhem Peire Cazals de
Caortz; there are also two contrafacta built on the same end-words, the best
known being Ben gran avoleza intra by Bertran de Born. These early sestinas
were written in Old Occitan; the form started spilling into Italian with Dante
in the 13th century; by the 15th, it was used in Portuguese by Luís de Camões.
The involvement of Dante and Petrarch in establishing the sestina form, together
with the contributions of others in the country, account for its classification
as an Italian verse form—despite not originating there. The result was that
the sestina was re-imported into France from Italy in the 16th century. Pontus
de Tyard was the first poet to attempt the form in French, and the only one to
do so prior to the 19th century; he introduced a partial rhyme scheme in his
sestina. = English =
The first appearance of the sestina in English print is "Ye wastefull woodes",
comprising lines 151–89 of the August Æglogue in Edmund Spenser's Shepherd's
Calendar, published in 1579. It is in unrhymed iambic pentameter, but the
order of end-words in each stanza is non-standard – ending 123456, 612345,
etc. – each stanza promoting the previous final end-word to the first
line, but otherwise leaving the order intact; the envoi order is 2 / 4 / 6.
This scheme was set by the Spaniard Gutierre de Cetina.
Although they appeared in print later, Philip Sidney's three sestinas may have
been written earlier, and are often credited as the first in English. The
first published is the double sestina "Ye Goatherd Gods". In this variant the
standard end-word pattern is repeated for twelve stanzas, ending with a
three-line envoi, resulting in a poem of 75 lines. Two others were published in
subsequent editions of the Arcadia. The second, "Since wailing is a bud of
causeful sorrow", is in the "standard" form. Like "Ye Goatherd Gods" it is
written in unrhymed iambic pentameter and uses exclusively feminine endings,
reflecting the Italian endecasillabo. The third, "Farewell, O sun, Arcadia's
clearest light", is the first rhyming sestina in English: it is in iambic
pentameters and follows the standard end-word scheme, but rhymes ababcc in
the first stanza. Sidney uses the same envoi structure as Spenser. William
Drummond of Hawthornden published two sestinas in 1616, which copy the form of
Sidney's rhyming sestina. After this, there is an absence of notable sestinas
for over 250 years, with John Frederick Nims noting that, "... there is not a
single sestina in the three volumes of the Oxford anthologies that cover the
seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."
In the 1870s, there was a revival of interest in French forms, led by Andrew
Lang, Austin Dobson, Edmund Gosse, W. E. Henley, John Payne, and others. The
earliest sestina of this period is Algernon Charles Swinburne's "Sestina".
It is in iambic pentameter rhyming ababab in the first stanza; each stanza
begins by repeating the previous end-words 6 then 1, but the following 4
lines repeat the remaining end-words ad lib; the envoi is 4 / 3 / 6. In the same
volume Swinburne introduces a "double sestina" that is unlike Sidney's: it
comprises 12 stanzas of 12 iambic pentameter lines each, the first stanza
rhyming abcabdcefedf. Similar to his "Sestina", each stanza first repeats
end-words 12 then 1 of the previous stanza; the rest are ad lib. The envoi
is 10 / 9 / 4 / 6 / 1 / 5. From the 1930s, a revival of the form
took place across the English-speaking world, led by poets such as W. H. Auden,
and the 1950s were described as the "age of the sestina" by James E. B. Breslin.
"Sestina: Altaforte" by Ezra Pound and "Paysage moralisé" by W. H. Auden are
distinguished modern examples of the sestina. The sestina remains a popular
closed verse form, and many sestinas continue to be written by contemporary
poets; notable examples include "The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street
People" by David Ferry and "IVF" by Kona Macphee.
Form Although the sestina has been subject to
many revisions throughout its development there remain several
features that define the form. The sestina is composed of six stanzas of
six lines, followed by a stanza of three lines. There is no rhyme within the
stanzas; instead the sestina is structured through a recurrent pattern
of the words that end each line, a technique known as "lexical repetition".
In the original form composed by Daniel, each line is of ten syllables, except
the first of each stanza which are of seven. The established form, as
developed by Petrarch and Dante, was in hendecasyllables. Since then, changes to
the line length have been a relatively common variant, such that Stephen Burt
has written: "sestinas, as the form exists today, [do not] require expertise
with inherited meter ...". The pattern that the line-ending words
follow is often explained if the numbers 1 to 6 are allowed to stand for the
end-words of the first stanza. Each successive stanza takes its pattern
based upon a bottom-up pairing of the lines of the preceding stanza. Given
that the pattern for the first stanza is 123456, this produces 615243 in the
second stanza. Another way of visualising the pattern
of line-ending words for each stanza is by the procedure known as retrogradatio
cruciata, which may be rendered as "backward crossing". The second stanza
can be seen to have been formed from three sets of pairs, or two triads. The
1–2–3 triad appears in its original order, but the 4–5–6 triad is reversed
and superimposed upon it. The pattern of the line-ending words in
a sestina is represented both numerically and alphabetically in the
following table: The sixth stanza is followed by a tercet
that is known variably by the French term envoi, the Occitan term tornada,
or, with reference to its size in relation to the preceding stanzas, a
"half-stanza". It consists of three lines that include all six of the
line-endings words of the preceding stanzas. This should take the pattern of
2–5, 4–3, 6–1; the first end-word of each pair can occur anywhere in the
line, while the second must end the line. However, the end-word order of the
envoi is no longer strictly enforced. The sestina has been subject to some
variations, with changes being made to both the size and number of stanzas, and
also to individual line length. A "double sestina" is the name given to
either: two sets of six six-line stanzas, with a three-line envoy, or
twelve twelve-line stanzas, with a six-line envoy. Examples of either
variation are rare; "Ye Goatherd Gods" by Philip Sidney is a notable example of
the former variation, while "The Complaint of Lisa" by Algernon Charles
Swinburne is a notable example of the latter variation. In the former
variation, the original pattern of line-ending words, i.e. that of the
first stanza, recurs in the seventh stanza, and thus the entire change of
pattern occurs twice throughout. In the second variation, the pattern of
line-ending words returns to the starting sequence in the eleventh
stanza; thus it does not, unlike the "single" sestina, allow for every
end-word to occupy each of the stanza ends; end-words 5 and 10 fail to couple
between stanzas. A "tritina" is a contraction of the
sestina to three stanzas of three lines, with a one-line envoy. The order of the
line-ending words follows the same pattern as that of the sestina, so that
they appear: 123, 312, 231 with the envoy as 123.
Effect The structure of the sestina, which
demands adherence to a strict and arbitrary order, produces several
effects within a poem. Stephen Burt notes that, "The sestina has served,
historically, as a complaint", its harsh demands acting as "signs for deprivation
or duress". The structure can enhance the subject matter that it orders; in
reference to Elizabeth Bishop's A Miracle for Breakfast, David Caplan
suggests that the form's "harshly arbitrary demands echo its subject's".
Nevertheless, the form's structure has been criticised; Paul Fussell considers
the sestina to be of "dubious structural expressiveness" when composed in English
and, irrespective of how it is used, "would seem to be [a form] that gives
more structural pleasure to the contriver than to the apprehender."
Margaret Spanos highlights "a number of corresponding levels of tension and
resolution" resulting from the structural form, including: structural,
semantic and aesthetic tensions. She believes that the aesthetic tension,
which results from the "conception of its mathematical completeness and
perfection", set against the "experiences of its labyrinthine
complexities" can be resolved in the apprehension of the "harmony of the
whole." The strength of the sestina, according
to Stephen Fry, is the "repetition and recycling of elusive patterns that
cannot be quite held in the mind all at once". For Shanna Compton, these
patterns are easily discernible by newcomers to the form; she says that:
"Even someone unfamiliar with the form's rules can tell by the end of the second
stanza ... what's going on ...". See also
Villanelle, another type of fixed verse form.
Canzone, an Italian or Provençal song or ballad, in which the sestina is
sometimes included. Pentina, a variation of the sestina
based on five endwords. Notes
References Further reading
External links Academy of American Poets, the sestina
form and examples McSweeney's Internet Tendency, selection
of sestinas from 2003–2007 Poetry Archive, the form and examples
University of Toronto, the form and examples
The earliest known sestina