View source for Sestina

{{Short description|Fixed verse form of poetry}}
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{{Quote box |width=350px |align=right |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
 |quote  =<poem>
'''"Sestina"'''

In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose,
Arnaut, great master of the lore of love,
First wrought sestines to win his lady's heart,
For she was deaf when simpler staves he sang,
And for her sake he broke the bonds of rhyme,
And in this subtler measure hid his woe.

'Harsh be my lines,' cried Arnaut, 'harsh the woe
My lady, that enthorn'd and cruel rose,
Inflicts on him that made her live in rhyme!'
But through the metre spake the voice of Love,
And like a wild-wood nightingale he sang
Who thought in crabbed lays to ease his heart.

</poem>
 |source = First two stanzas of the sestina "Sestina" <br>[[Edmund Gosse]] (1879)}}
A '''sestina''' ({{Langx|it|sestina}}, from ''sesto'', sixth; [[Old Occitan]]: ''cledisat'' {{IPA|oc|klediˈzat|}}; also known as ''sestine'', ''sextine'', ''sextain'') is a [[fixed verse|fixed verse form]] consisting of six [[stanza]]s of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line [[envoi]]. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas, rotated in a set pattern.

The invention of the form is usually attributed to [[Arnaut Daniel]], a troubadour of 12th-century [[Provence]], and the first sestinas were written in the [[Occitan language]] of that region. The form was cultivated by his fellow troubadours, then by other poets across [[Continental Europe]] in the subsequent centuries; they contributed to what would become the "standard form" of the sestina. The earliest example of the form in English appeared in 1579, though they were rarely written in Britain until the end of the 19th century. The sestina remains a popular poetic form, and many sestinas continue to be written by contemporary poets.

==History==
[[File:BnF ms. 12473 fol. 50 - Arnaut Daniel (1).jpg|thumb|left|The Occitan troubadour Arnaut Daniel, considered the originator of the sestina]]
The oldest-known sestina is "Lo ferm voler qu'el cor m'intra", written around 1200 by [[Arnaut Daniel]], a [[troubadour]] of [[Aquitaine|Aquitanian]] origin; he refers to it as "cledisat", meaning, more or less, "interlock".<ref name=eusebi>{{cite book|last=Eusebi|first=Mario|title=L'aur'amara|year=1996|publisher=Carocci|location=Rome|isbn=978-88-7984-167-2}}</ref> Hence, Daniel is generally considered the form's inventor,<ref name="Fry 2007, p. 235">Fry 2007, p. 235</ref> though it has been suggested that he may only have innovated an already existing form.<ref name="Davidson 1910 pp. 18–20">Davidson 1910 pp. 18–20</ref> Nevertheless, two other original troubadouric sestinas are recognised,<ref>{{cite book|last=Collura|first=Alessio|title=Il trovatore Guilhem Peire de Cazals. Edizione Critica|year=2010|publisher=Master Thesis, University of Padova|location=Padova|url=https://www.academia.edu/3224706}}</ref> the best known being "Eras, pus vey mon benastruc" by [[Guilhem Peire Cazals de Caortz]]; there are also two [[contrafacta]] built on the same end-words, the best known being ''Ben gran avoleza intra'' by [[Bertran de Born]]. These early sestinas were written in [[Old Occitan]]; the form started spilling into Italian with [[Dante]] in the 13th century; by the 15th, it was used in Portuguese by [[Luís de Camões]].<ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1146" /><ref name="dantesestina">{{cite web|title=Sestina of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180701|publisher=[[Poetry Foundation|The Poetry Foundation]]|access-date=20 March 2012}}</ref>

The involvement of Dante and [[Petrarch]] in establishing the sestina form,<ref name="Gasparov 1996, p. 159" /> together with the contributions of others in the country, account for its classification as an Italian verse form—despite not originating there.<ref name="Stratton 1917, pp. 306, 316, 318">Stratton 1917, pp. 306, 316, 318</ref> The result was that the sestina was re-imported into France from Italy in the 16th century.<ref name="Kastner 1903 p. 283">Kastner 1903 p. 283</ref> [[Pontus de Tyard]] was the first poet to attempt the form in French, and the only one to do so prior to the 19th century; he introduced a partial [[rhyme scheme]] into his sestina.<ref name="Kastner, 1903 pp. 283–4">Kastner, 1903 pp. 283–4</ref>

===English===
An early version of the sestina in [[Middle English language|Middle English]] is the "Hymn to Venus" by [[Elizabeth Woodville]] (1437–1492); it is an "elaboration" on the form, found in one single manuscript.<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cteyEYBjdTsC&pg=PA227 |title=A Companion to the Middle English Lyric |editor1-first=Thomas Gibson |editor1-last=Duncan |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |year=2005 |isbn=9781843840657 |first=Sarah |last=Stanbury |chapter=Middle English Religious Lyrics |pages=227–41}}</ref> It is a six-stanza poem that praises [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]], the goddess of love,<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GtPSOP3jvLYC&pg=PA195 |first=Sarah |last=McNamer |chapter=Lyrics and romances |title=The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing |editor1-last=Wallace |editor1-first=David |editor2-first=Carolyn |editor2-last=Dinshaw |publisher=Cambridge UP |year=2003 |isbn=9780521796385 |pages=195–209}}</ref> and consists of six seven-line stanzas in which the first line of each stanza is also its last line, and the lines of the first stanza provide the first lines for each subsequent stanza.<ref>{{cite book |title=Women's Writing in Middle English |editor1-first=Alexandra |editor1-last=Barratt |pages=275–77 |publisher=Longman |location=New York |isbn=0-582-06192-X |year=1992}}</ref>

The first appearance of the sestina in English print is "Ye wastefull woodes", comprising lines 151–89 of the August Æglogue in [[Edmund Spenser]]'s ''[[Shepherd's Calendar]]'', published in 1579. It is in unrhymed iambic pentameter, but the order of end-words in each stanza is non-standard – ending 123456, 612345, etc. – each stanza promoting the previous final end-word to the first line, but otherwise leaving the order intact; the envoi order is (1) 2 / (3) 4 / (5) 6.<ref name="spensershepherd">{{cite web|title=The Shepheardes Calender: August|url=http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/august.html|publisher=[[University of Oregon]]|access-date=28 March 2012}}</ref> This scheme was set by the Spaniard [[Gutierre de Cetina]].<ref name="Shapiro 1980, p. 185">Shapiro 1980, p. 185</ref>

Although they appeared in print later, [[Philip Sidney]]'s three sestinas may have been written earlier, and are often credited as the first in English. The first published (toward the end of Book I of ''[[The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia]]'', 1590<ref name="Ferguson 1996, pp. 188–90">Ferguson 1996, pp. 188–90</ref>) is the double sestina "Ye Goatherd Gods". In this variant the standard end-word pattern is repeated for twelve stanzas, ending with a three-line envoi, resulting in a poem of 75 lines. Two others were published in subsequent editions of the ''Arcadia''. The second, "Since wailing is a bud of causeful sorrow", is in the "standard" form. Like "Ye Goatherd Gods" it is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter and uses exclusively feminine endings, reflecting the Italian ''endecasillabo''. The third, "Farewell, O sun, Arcadia's clearest light", is the first rhyming sestina in English: it is in iambic pentameters and follows the standard end-word scheme, but rhymes <math>\mathrm{ABABCC}</math> in the first stanza (the [[rhyme scheme]] necessarily changes in each subsequent stanza, a consequence of which is that the 6th stanza is in rhyming couplets). Sidney uses the same envoi structure as Spenser. [[William Drummond of Hawthornden]] published two sestinas (which he called "sextains") in 1616, which copy the form of Sidney's rhyming sestina. After this, there is an absence of notable sestinas for over 250 years,<ref name="Burt 2007, p. 219">Burt 2007, p. 219</ref> with [[John Frederick Nims]] noting that, "...&nbsp;there is not a single sestina in the three volumes of the Oxford anthologies that cover the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries."<ref name="Caplan 2006, pp. 19-20">Caplan 2006, pp. 19–20</ref>

In the 1870s, there was a revival of interest in French forms, led by [[Andrew Lang]], [[Henry Austin Dobson|Austin Dobson]], [[Edmund Gosse]], [[W. E. Henley]], [[John Payne (poet)|John Payne]], and others.<ref name="White 1887, p xxxix">White 1887, p xxxix</ref> The earliest sestina of this period is [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]]'s "Sestina".<ref>This is the earliest-published sestina reprinted by Gleeson White (White 1887, pp&nbsp;203–12), and he doesn't mention any earlier ones.</ref> It is in iambic pentameter rhyming <math>\mathrm{ABABAB}</math> in the first stanza; each stanza begins by repeating the previous end-words 6 then 1, but the following 4 lines repeat the remaining end-words ''ad lib''; the envoi is (1) 4 / (2) 3 / (5) 6. In the same volume (''Poems and Ballads, Second Series'', 1878) Swinburne introduces a "double sestina"<ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1146" /><ref name="Lennard 2006, p. 53">Lennard 2006, p. 53</ref> ("The Complaint of Lisa") that is unlike Sidney's: it comprises 12 stanzas of 12 iambic pentameter lines each, the first stanza rhyming <math>\mathrm{ABCABDCEFEDF}</math>. Similar to his "Sestina", each stanza first repeats end-words 12 then 1 of the previous stanza; the rest are ''ad lib''. The envoi is (12) 10 / (8) 9 / (7) 4 / (3) 6 / (2) 1 / (11) 5.

From the 1930s, a revival of the form took place across the English-speaking world, led by poets such as [[W. H. Auden]], and the 1950s were described as the "age of the sestina" by James E. B. Breslin.<ref name="Caplan 2006, p. 20">Caplan 2006, p. 20</ref> "Sestina: Altaforte" by [[Ezra Pound]], "Paysage moralisé" by W. H. Auden, and "Sestina" by [[Elizabeth Bishop]] are distinguished modern examples of the sestina.<ref name="altaforte">{{cite web|title=Sestina: Altaforte|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/240262|publisher=[[Poetry Foundation|The Poetry Foundation]]|access-date=20 March 2012}}</ref><ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1147">Preminger 1993, p. 1147</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://staff.washington.edu/rmcnamar/383/bishop.html|title=Elizabeth Bishop: Sestina|last=Ruby|date=January 24, 2012|website=Elizabeth Bishop|access-date=March 9, 2018}}</ref> "Histoire" by [[Harry Mathews]] adds an additional [[Oulipo|Oulipian]] constraint: the end words wildly misusing ideological or prejudicial terms.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Matthews |first1=Harry |title=Histoire |journal=[[The New York Review of Books]] |date=August 16, 1984 |volume=XXXI |issue=13 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1984/08/16/histoire/ |access-date=5 March 2024}}</ref> The sestina remains a popular closed verse form, and many sestinas continue to be written by contemporary poets;<ref name="Burt 2007, pp. 218–19">Burt 2007, pp. 218–19</ref> notable examples include "Six Bad Poets" by [[Christopher Reid (writer)|Christopher Reid]],<ref name="guardian2013">{{cite news |last1=Kellaway |first1=Kate |title=Six Bad Poets by Christopher Reid – review |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/27/six-bad-poets-christopher-reid |work=The Guardian |date=26 October 2013 |access-date=14 July 2023}}</ref><ref name="spectator2013">{{cite web |last1=Wheldon |first1=Wynn |title=Six Bad Poets, by Christopher Reid – review |date=26 September 2013 |url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/six-bad-poets-by-christopher-reid-review/ |publisher=The Spectator |access-date=14 July 2023}}</ref> "The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People" by [[David Ferry (poet)|David Ferry]] and "IVF" by [[Kona Macphee]].<ref name="Fry 2007, p. 235" /><ref name=ferrysestina>{{cite web|title=The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172170|publisher=[[Poetry Foundation|The Poetry Foundation]]|access-date=20 March 2012}}</ref>

==Form==
[[File:Sestina system alt.svg|thumb|400px|right|Graphical representation of the algorithm for ordering the end-words in a sestina]]

Although the sestina has been subject to many revisions throughout its development, there remain several features that define the form. The sestina is composed of six stanzas of six lines (sixains), followed by a stanza of three lines (a [[tercet]]).<ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1146" /><ref name="Fry 2007, p. 231">Fry 2007, p. 231</ref> There is no rhyme within the stanzas;<ref name="Spanos 1978, p. 546">Spanos 1978, p. 546</ref> instead the sestina is structured through a recurrent pattern of the words that end each line,<ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1146" /> a technique known as "lexical repetition".<ref name="Fry 2007, p. 232">Fry 2007, p. 232</ref>

In the original form composed by Daniel, each line is of ten [[syllable]]s, except the first of each stanza which are of seven.<ref name="Kastner 1903, p. 284">Kastner 1903, p. 284</ref> The established form, as developed by Petrarch and Dante, was in [[hendecasyllable]]s.<ref name="Gasparov 1996, p. 159" /> Since then, changes to the line length have been a relatively common variant,<ref name="Strand et al., 2001, p. 24">Strand et al., 2001, p. 24</ref> such that [[Stephanie Burt]] has written: "sestinas, as the form exists today, [do not] require expertise with inherited meter&nbsp;...".<ref name="Burt 2007, p. 222">Burt 2007, p. 222</ref>

The pattern that the line-ending words follow is often explained if the numbers 1 to 6 are allowed to stand for the end-words of the first stanza. Each successive stanza takes its pattern based upon a bottom-up pairing of the lines of the preceding stanza (i.e., last and first, then second-from-last and second, then third-from-last and third).<ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1146" /> Given that the pattern for the first stanza is 123456, this produces 615243 in the second stanza, numerical series which corresponds, as [[Paolo Canettieri]] has shown, to the way in which the points on the [[dice]] are arranged.<ref name=Canettieri>{{cite book|last=Canettieri|first=Paolo|title=Il gioco delle forme nella poesia dei trovatori|year=1996|publisher=Il Bagatto|location=Rome|isbn=88-7806-095-X}}</ref>{{page needed|date=July 2023}} This genetic hypothesis is supported by the fact that Arnaut Daniel was a strong dice player and various images related to this game are present in his poetic texts.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Germini |first=Simone |date=2014-10-08 |title=Arnaut Daniel, il giocatore |url=https://imalpensanti.it/2014/10/arnaut-daniel-il-giocatore/ |access-date=2025-01-01 |website=iMalpensanti |language=it-IT}}</ref>

[[File:Sestina system retrogradatio cruciata.svg|thumb|300px|right|''Retrogradatio cruciata'': The pattern of end-words in one stanza of a sestina, relative to the previous stanza]]

Another way of visualising the pattern of line-ending words for each stanza is by the procedure known as ''retrogradatio cruciata'', which may be rendered as "backward crossing".<ref name="Krysl 2004, p. 9">Krysl 2004, p. 9</ref> The second stanza can be seen to have been formed from three sets of pairs (6–1, 5–2, 4–3), or two triads (1–2–3, 4–5–6). The 1–2–3 triad appears in its original order, but the 4–5–6 triad is reversed and superimposed upon it.<ref name="Shapiro 1980 pp. 7–8">Shapiro 1980 pp. 7–8</ref>

The pattern of the line-ending words in a sestina is represented both numerically and alphabetically in the following table:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Table of sestina end-words<ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1146">Preminger 1993, p. 1146</ref><ref name="Fry 2007, pp. 234–5">Fry 2007, pp. 234–5</ref>
|-
! scope="col" | Stanza 1
! scope="col" | Stanza 2
! scope="col" | Stanza 3
! scope="col" | Stanza 4
! scope="col" | Stanza 5
! scope="col" | Stanza 6
|-
! scope="row" | 1 A 
| 6 F || 3 C || 5 E || 4 D || 2 B
|-
! scope="row" | 2 B 
| 1 A || 6 F || 3 C || 5 E || 4 D
|-
! scope="row" | 3 C 
| 5 E || 4 D || 2 B || 1 A || 6 F
|-
! scope="row" | 4 D 
| 2 B || 1 A || 6 F || 3 C || 5 E
|-
! scope="row" | 5 E 
| 4 D || 2 B || 1 A || 6 F || 3 C
|-
! scope="row" | 6 F 
| 3 C || 5 E || 4 D || 2 B || 1 A 
|}

The sixth stanza is followed by a tercet that is known variably by the French term envoi, the Occitan term [[Tornada (Occitan literary term)|tornada]],<ref name="Preminger 1993, p. 1146" /> or, with reference to its size in relation to the preceding stanzas, a "half-stanza".<ref name="Gasparov 1996, p. 159">Gasparov 1996 p. 159</ref> It consists of three lines that include all six of the line-ending words of the preceding stanzas. This should take the pattern of 2–5, 4–3, 6–1 (numbers relative to the first stanza); the first end-word of each pair can occur anywhere in the line, while the second must end the line.<ref name="Fry 2007 p. 234">Fry 2007, p. 234</ref> However, the end-word order of the envoi is no longer strictly enforced.<ref name="Fry 2007, p. 237">Fry 2007, p. 237</ref>

{{Quote box |width=350px |align=left |quoted=true |bgcolor=#FFFFF0 |salign=right
 |quote  =<poem>
'''"Sestina"'''

''Time to plant '''tears''''' (6), says the '''almanac''' (5).
The '''grandmother''' (2) sings to the marvelous '''stove''' (4)
and the '''child''' (3) draws another inscrutable '''house''' (1).
</poem>
 |source = The envoi to "Sestina"; the repeated words are emboldened and labelled.<br>[[Elizabeth Bishop]] (1965)<ref name="Ferguson 1996, p. 1412–13">Ferguson 1996, p. 1413–13</ref>}}

The sestina has been subject to some variations, with changes being made to both the size and number of stanzas, and also to individual line length. A "double sestina" is the name given to either: two sets of six six-line stanzas, with a three-line envoy (for a total of 75 lines),<ref name="Ferguson 1996, pp. 188–90" /> or twelve twelve-line stanzas, with a six-line envoy (for a total of 150 lines). Examples of either variation are rare; "Ye Goatherd Gods" by [[Philip Sidney]] is a notable example of the former variation, while "The Complaint of Lisa" by Algernon Charles Swinburne is a notable example of the latter variation.<ref name=poetryfoundation>{{cite web|title=The Complaint of Lisa|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174548#poem|publisher=[[Poetry Foundation|The Poetry Foundation]]|access-date=19 February 2012}}</ref> In the former variation, the original pattern of line-ending words, i.e. that of the first stanza, recurs in the seventh stanza, and thus the entire change of pattern occurs twice throughout. In the second variation, the pattern of line-ending words returns to the starting sequence in the eleventh stanza; thus it does not, unlike the "single" sestina, allow for every end-word to occupy each of the stanza ends; end-words 5 and 10 fail to couple between stanzas.

==Effect==
The structure of the sestina, which demands adherence to a strict and arbitrary order, produces several effects within a poem. [[Stephanie Burt]] notes that, "The sestina has served, historically, as a complaint", its harsh demands acting as "signs for deprivation or duress".<ref name="Burt 2007, p. 219" /> The structure can enhance the subject matter that it orders; in reference to [[Elizabeth Bishop]]'s ''A Miracle for Breakfast'', David Caplan suggests that the form's "harshly arbitrary demands echo its subject's".<ref name="Caplan 2006 p. 23">Caplan 2006, p. 23</ref> Nevertheless, the form's structure has been criticised; [[Paul Fussell]] considers the sestina to be of "dubious structural expressiveness" when composed in English and, irrespective of how it is used, "would seem to be [a form] that gives more structural pleasure to the contriver than to the apprehender".<ref name="Fussell 1979, p. 145">Fussell 1979, p. 145</ref>

Margaret Spanos highlights "a number of corresponding levels of tension and resolution" resulting from the structural form, including: structural, [[Semantics|semantic]] and [[Aesthetics|aesthetic]] tensions.<ref name="Spanos 1978, p. 551">Spanos 1987, p. 551</ref> She believes that the aesthetic tension, which results from the "''conception'' of its mathematical completeness and perfection", set against the "''experiences'' of its labyrinthine complexities" can be resolved in the apprehension of the "harmony of the whole".<ref name="Spanos 1978, p. 551" />

The strength of the sestina, according to [[Stephen Fry]], is the "repetition and recycling of elusive patterns that cannot be quite held in the mind all at once".<ref name="Fry 2007, p. 238">Fry 2007, p. 238</ref> For [[Shanna Compton]], these patterns are easily discernible by newcomers to the form; she says that: "Even someone unfamiliar with the form's rules can tell by the end of the second stanza&nbsp;... what's going on&nbsp;...".<ref name="Burt 2007, p. 226">Burt 2007, p. 226</ref>

==Examples==
<!--This is not supposed to be a comprehensive list of all sestinas; please restrict to those with an associated article (either the individual poem or the collection).-->
* The 1972 television play ''[[Between Time and Timbuktu]]'', based on the writings of [[Kurt Vonnegut]], is about a poet-astronaut who wanted to compose a sestina in outer space. Vonnegut wrote a sestina for the production.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Vonnegut|first1=Kurt|author-link1=Kurt Vonnegut|editor1-last=Wakefield|editor1-first=Dan|editor1-link=Dan Wakefield|title=Kurt Vonnegut: Letters|date=2012|publisher=Delacorte Press|location=New York|isbn=9780345535399|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H2H7QvYOPCoC&q=%22vonnegut%22%20%22sestina%22&pg=PT265|quote=I am writing a sestina for the script... It's tough, but what isn't?}} (Letter of 2 October 1971, to his daughter Nanette.)</ref>

==See also==
*[[Canzone]], an Italian or Provençal song or ballad, in which the sestina is sometimes included.
*[[Pentina]], a variation of the sestina based on five endwords.
*[[Villanelle]], another type of fixed verse form.
{{Clear}}

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=20em}}

===Sources===
{{Refbegin|2|indent=yes|}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Burt |first1=Stephen |year=2007 |title=Sestina! or, The Fate of the Idea of Form |journal=Modern Philology |volume=105 |issue=1 |pages=218–241 |doi= 10.1086/587209|jstor=10.1086/587209|s2cid=162877995 |url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3426325/Burt_Sestina.pdf?sequence=2}} {{subscription required}}
*{{Cite book|last=Canettieri|first=Paolo|title=Il gioco delle forme nella lirica dei trovatori|publisher=IT: Bagatto Libri|year=1996}}
*{{Cite book|last=Caplan|first=David|title=Questions of possibility: contemporary poetry and poetic form|publisher=US: Oxford University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-19-531325-3}}
*{{Cite journal |last=Davidson |first=F. J. A. |year=1910 |title=The Origin of the Sestina |journal=Modern Language Notes |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=18–20|doi=10.2307/2915934|jstor=2915934 }} {{subscription required}}
*{{Cite book|last=Ferguson|first=Margaret|title=The Norton Anthology of Poetry|publisher=US: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.|year=1996|isbn=0-393-96820-0|display-authors=etal}}
*{{Cite book|last=Fry|first=Stephen|author-link=Stephen Fry|title=The Ode Less Travelled|publisher=UK: Arrow Books|year=2007|isbn=978-0-09-950934-9}}
*{{Cite book|last=Fussell|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Fussell|title=Poetic Meter and Poetic Form|publisher=US: McGraw-Hill Higher Education|year=1979|isbn=978-0-07-553606-2|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/poeticmeterpoeti00fussrich}}
*{{Cite book|last=Gasparov|first=M. L.|author-link=Mikhail Gasparov|title=A History of European Versification|publisher=UK: Clarendon Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0-19-815879-0|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofeuropea00gasp}}
*{{Cite book|last=Kastner|first=L. E.|title=A History of French Versification|publisher=UK: Clarendon Press|year=1903|url=https://archive.org/stream/historyoffrenchv00kastuoft#page/n5/mode/2up}}
*{{Cite journal|last=Krysl|first=Marilyn|title=Sacred and Profane: Sestina as Rite|journal=The American Poetry Review|volume=33|issue=2|year=2004|pages=7–12}}
*{{Cite book|last=Lennard|first=John|title=The Poetry Handbook|publisher=UK: Oxford University Press|year=2006|isbn=978-0-19-926538-1}}
*{{Cite book|last=Preminger|first=Alex|title=The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics|publisher=US: Princeton University Press|year=1993|isbn=0-691-02123-6|display-authors=etal|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/newprincetonency00alex}}
*{{Cite book|last=Shapiro|first=Marianne|title=Hieroglyph of time: the Petrarchan sestina|publisher=US: University of Minnesota Press|year=1980|isbn=978-0-8166-0945-1|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/hieroglyphoftime0000shap}}
*{{Cite journal|last1=Spanos|first1=Margaret|year=1978|title=The Sestina: An Exploration of the Dynamics of Poetic Structure|journal=Medieval Academy of America|volume=53|issue=3|pages=545–557|doi=10.2307/2855144|jstor=2855144|s2cid=162823092}} {{subscription required}}
*{{Cite book|last1=Strand|first1=Mark|last2=Boland|first2=Eavan|title=The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms|publisher=US: Norton|year=2001|isbn=978-0-393-32178-4}}
*{{Cite book|editor-last=White|editor-first=Gleeson|editor-link=Gleeson White|title=Ballades and Rondeaus, Chants Royal, Sestinas, Villanelles, etc.|publisher=The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.|year=1887|series=The Canterbury Poets|url=https://archive.org/stream/balladesrondeau00whit#page/n5/mode/2up}}
{{Refend}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|indent=yes}}
*{{cite journal|last=Saclolo|first=Michael P.|title=How a Medieval Troubadour Became a Mathematical Figure|journal=Notices of the AMS|date=May 2011|volume=58|issue=5|pages=682–7|url=http://www.ams.org/notices/201105/rtx110500682p.pdf|access-date=7 September 2012}} 
*{{Cite journal|last=Stratton|first=Clarence|year=1917|title=The Italian Lyrics of Sidney's Arcadia|journal=The Sewanee Review|volume=25|issue=3|pages=305–326|jstor=27533030}} {{subscription required}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{EB1911 poster|Sestina}}
*[http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5792 Rules and history of the sestina] from the American Academy of Poetry
*[http://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/sestinas Examples of sestinas from 2003–2007] at McSweeney's Internet Tendency
*[https://classicalpoets.org/2016/12/14/how-to-write-a-sestina-with-examples/ How to Write a Sestina (with Examples and Diagrams)] from the Society of Classical Poets

{{Western medieval lyric forms}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Poetic forms]]
[[Category:Western medieval lyric forms]]
[[Category:Rhyme]]
[[Category:Stanzaic form]]
[[Category:Occitan literary genres]]