The Petrachan sonnet that is spoken by Romeo and Juliet when they first meet is in the form of a stanza that is broken by alternate speakers, who each say seven lines.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet contains three Petrarchan sonnets, poems written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdcdcd that have fourteen lines, composed of an octave and a sestet. Whereas the Petrarchan octave and sestet are often separate stanzas, in Shakespeare's...
The Petrachan sonnet that is spoken by Romeo and Juliet when they first meet is in the form of a stanza that is broken by alternate speakers, who each say seven lines.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet contains three Petrarchan sonnets, poems written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cdcdcd that have fourteen lines, composed of an octave and a sestet. Whereas the Petrarchan octave and sestet are often separate stanzas, in Shakespeare's play the sonnets are written all in one stanza. Specifically, they are the Prologues of Acts I and II, and the first encounter of Romeo with Juliet in Act I, Scene 5, in which each speaks seven lines of this sonnet.
The Petrarchan sonnet is of Italian origin. Francesco Petrarca, a Renaissance poet, created this form to write about obsessive and unrequited love. In Petrarca's pattern for love, a young man falls in love at first sight; however, the lovely woman who is the object of his love tests his passion by prolonging the courtship. Her resistance causes the lover to become mired in melancholy to the point that he isolates himself from his friends and family. He then expresses his deep emotions and feelings of rejection in poetry.
Certainly, Romeo's character follows the pattern of the Petrarchan lover as in the first scene of Act I he has avoided his parents and friend Benvolio and expresses his deep melancholy for his loss of love from Rosaline in oxymorons. But, in Scene 5, he is dazzled by the beauty of Juliet and falls in love with her at first sight. Boldly, he approaches her and declares his passionate feelings:
If I profane my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss....(1.5.93-96)
Then, Juliet responds, resisting his advances:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss..... (1.5.94-97)
(After line 97, Romeo and Juliet, who each have seven lines of the sonnet, alternate by speaking only one or two lines at a time.)
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