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SETH `
Eloquio, See also:Dante admits that he copied the structure of his sestinas from Arnaut See also:Daniel; " et nos eum secuti sumus," he says, after praising the See also:work of the Provencal poet. The See also:sestina, in its pure See also:medieval See also:form, is See also:independent of See also:rhyme; it consists of six stanzas of six lines each of See also:blank See also:verse. This recurrence of the number six gives its name to the poem. The final words of the first See also:stanza appear in inverted See also:- ORDER
- ORDER (through Fr. ordre, for earlier ordene, from Lat. ordo, ordinis, rank, service, arrangement; the ultimate source is generally taken to be the root seen in Lat. oriri, rise, arise, begin; cf. " origin ")
- ORDER, HOLY
order in all the others, the order as laid down by the Provengals being as follows:—abcdef, faebdc, cfdabe, ecbfad, deacfb, bdfece. To these six stanzas followed a tornada, or envoi, of three lines, in which all the six See also:key-words were repeated in the following order:— b-e, d-c, f-a. It has been supposed that there was some symbolic See also:mystery involved in the rigid elaboration of this form, from which no slightest divergence was permitted, but if so this cryptic meaning has been lost. See also:Petrarch cultivated a slightly modified sestina, but after the See also:middle ages the form See also:fell into disuse, until it was revived and adapted to the See also:French See also:language by the poets of the Pleiade, in particular by,See also:Pontus de Thyard. In the 19th See also:century, the sestina or sextine was assiduously cultivated by the See also:Comte de See also:Gramont, who, between 183o and 1848, wrote a large number of examples, included in his See also:Chant du passe (1854). He followed the example of Petrarch rather than of the Provencal troubadours, by introducing two rhymes instead of the rigorous blank verse. A sestina by Gramont, beginning:
" L'etang qui s'eclaircit au milieu See also:des feuillages,
La See also:mare avec ses joncs rubanant au soleil,
Ses flotilles de flews, ses insectes volages
Me charment. Longuement au creux de leurs rivages J'erre, et See also:les yeux remplis d'un See also:mirage vermeil,
J'ecoute l'eau qui rive en son tiede sommeil,"
has been recommended to all who wish to " See also:triumph over the innumerable and terrible difficulties " of the sestina, as a perfect See also:model of the form in its " precise and classic purity." The earliest sestina in See also:English was published in 1877 by Mr See also:Gosse; this was composed according to the archaic form of Arnaut Daniel. Since that See also:- TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
- TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
- TIME, STANDARD
time it has been frequently employed by English and See also:American writers, particularly by See also:Swinburne, who has composed some beautiful sestinas on the rhymed French See also:pattern; of these, that beginning I saw my soul, at See also:rest upon a See also:day " is perhaps the finest example of this poem existing in English. Mr Swinburne is, moreover, like Petrarch, the author of an astonishing tour de force, " The Complaint of Lisa," which is a See also:double sestina of twelve verses of twelve lines each. The sestina was cultivated in See also:Germany in the 17th century, particularly by Opitz and by See also:Weckherlin. In the 19th century an See also:attempt was made, not without success, to compose See also:German sestinas in See also:dialogue, while the double sestina itself is not unknown in German literature.
End of Article: SETH
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