Octave has been derived from the Latin word octāva, which means “eighth part.” It is a verse form that contains eight lines, which usually appear in an iambic pentameter. In simple words, it can be any stanza in a poem that has eight lines and follows a rhymed or unrhymed meter.
An octave is a verse form consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter (in English) or of hendecasyllables (in Italian). The most common rhyme scheme for an octave is .
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The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is a type of sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets. Because of the structure of Italian, the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet is more easily fulfilled in that language than in English. The original Italian sonnet form consists of a total of fourteen hendecasyllabic lines in two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet.
A sestet is six lines of poetry forming a stanza or complete poem. A sestet is also the name given to the second division of an Italian sonnet (as opposed to an English or Spenserian Sonnet), which must consist of an octave, of eight lines, succeeded by a sestet, of six lines.
The etymology of the word can be traced to the Italian word sestetto, meaning “sixth”. The origin of the sonnet form has been traced to poems by Giacomo da Lentini in Sicily. The original sonnet form is the Sicilian Sonnet (also in octave and sestet) rhyming or . It is generally believed that the first eight lines derive from the Sicilian form of the Stramboto.
