A sestina (Italian: sestina, from sesto, "sixth"; also known as sestine, sextine, or sextain) is a fixed verse form in poetry. It consists of six stanzas of six lines each (sixains), normally followed by a three-line concluding stanza called an envoi (also known as a tornada or tercet), for a total of 39 lines.
Structure and Form
The defining feature of a sestina is the intricate pattern of end-word repetition. The six words that end each line of the first stanza are reused as the end words of each subsequent stanza, rotated in a specific, fixed order. The pattern is known as retrogradatio cruciata ("backward crossing"). Using numbers 1 through 6 to represent the end-words of the first stanza, the order of end-words in each stanza is as follows:
| Stanza | End-word order |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
| 2 | 6 1 5 2 4 3 |
| 3 | 3 6 4 1 2 5 |
| 4 | 5 3 2 6 1 4 |
| 5 | 4 5 1 3 6 2 |
| 6 | 2 4 6 5 3 1 |
| Envoi | (2-5) (4-3) (6-1) |
In the envoi, all six end-words appear: two per line, with one in the middle of the line and one at the end. The sestina is typically unrhymed, though some poets have introduced rhyme schemes. There is no fixed meter in modern usage, though early sestinas (by Arnaut Daniel, Dante, and Petrarch) followed syllabic restrictions (e.g., hendecasyllables in Italian).
History
The invention of the sestina is generally attributed to Arnaut Daniel, a Provençal troubadour of the 12th century. His poem "Lo ferm voler qu'el cor m'intra" (c. 1200) is the oldest known sestina; Daniel referred to the form as cledisat, meaning "interlock." The form was subsequently cultivated by other Occitan troubadours and then spread to Italy, where it was adopted by Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarch in the 13th and 14th centuries. Their use of the form helped establish it as a canonical verse form in Italian literature.
The sestina appeared in English print for the first time in Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender (1579), in the "August Æglogue." Philip Sidney also wrote three sestinas, including the double sestina "Ye Goatherd Gods" (c. 1590). After a period of relative disuse in English poetry for over 250 years, the form was revived in the late 19th century by poets such as Algernon Charles Swinburne, Edmund Gosse, and Andrew Lang. A further revival in the 20th century, led by poets including Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, and Elizabeth Bishop, cemented the sestina as a lasting and popular form in contemporary poetry.
Notable Examples
- "Sestina: Altaforte" (1909) by Ezra Pound — a dramatic monologue in the voice of the troubadour-warlord Bertran de Born.
- "Paysage Moralisé" (1933) by W. H. Auden — an allegorical sestina that helped revive the form in English.
- "Sestina" (1965) by Elizabeth Bishop — a poem about a grandmother, a child, and a kitchen, using the end-words "house," "grandmother," "child," "stove," "almanac," and "tears."
- "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape" (1966) by John Ashbery — a playful sestina featuring characters from the Popeye cartoon.
- "The Complaint of Lisa" (1878) by Algernon Charles Swinburne — a double sestina (12 stanzas of 12 lines each, with a 6-line envoi).
Variations
- Double sestina: Either two sets of six six-line stanzas with a three-line envoi (75 lines total), or twelve twelve-line stanzas with a six-line envoi (150 lines total).
- Tritina: A contracted form invented by Marie Ponsot, with three end-words repeated over three three-line stanzas and a single-line envoi.
- Pentina: A variation based on five end-words.
Etymology
The word "sestina" is derived from the Italian sesto, meaning "six," from Latin sextus.
