How to Write a Sestet

A Sestet, by definition, is the second part of the so-called Italian sonnet or Petrarchian sonnet, which has been named after its original creator - Petrarch. As its name suggests, the Sestet is composed of six lines, which are predominantly found at the end of a sonnet. The first step towards learning how to write a sestet is to master everything about its rhyming pattern.

The Sestet is basically made up of two stanzas, and it can take up two different rhyming patterns: either abcabc for the first stanza and abccba for the second stanza, or simply ababab for both stanzas. Rarely, Sestets are also written using ababcd as rhyming scheme. In fact, whereas the first two rhyming schemes are of Italian origin, the latter two are of British origin and also the more recent ones. Below is an example of a Sestet, illustrating one of the rhyming schemes:

Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks -- (a)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, -- (b)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, -- (a)
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: -- (b)
If this be error and upon me proved, -- (c)
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. -- (c)

The above Sestet is taken from Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare, and it does not only illustrate what an English Sestet looks like but also hints that William Shakespeare is probably the most popular of all writers that have written Sestets.

So, the very first skill that you should aim to acquire when trying to learn how to write a Sestet is to make the ending words rhyme, as shown in the previously explained patterns. And if you are wondering whether the word 'come' rhymes with the word 'doom' in lines 2 and 4, you should know that in Shakespearian times, the way these two words were pronounced could create at least a half rhyme, same as for the words 'proved' and 'loved'.

As far as the rhythmic pattern concerned, a Sestet can either be written in free verse that is no rhythmic pattern and no strict variation of stressed and unstressed syllables, or in iambic pentameter, which is the most popular and desired rhythmic pattern. Below is an example of the

Iambic pentameter:

'Oh let me true in love but truly write'

` _ ` _ ` _ ` _ `

In the example above, the stressed syllables are expressed by this symbol ( ' ) and the unstressed syllables by the symbol ( _ ).

A pertinent example of a more recently written Sestet, more precisely one written by Wilfred Owen in the advent of the World Wars, can be read here.