The sonnet is an important parcel of European literature. It has roots in Italian literature as it has originally been explored by Italian poets, notably Francis Petrarch. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet has a prescriptive style to which a sonneteer complies. Some structural and format rules make a sonnet what it is. Moreover, on a thematic level, the genre lends itself to the exploration of various themes, the most recurrent of which is love. A glimpse at the history of the Italian Sonnet While the Italian sonnet is also called the Petrarchan sonnet about Francis Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca)- great fourteen-century poet- the sonnet is claimed to have existed a century before him (Spiller, 1992). The early Italian sonneteers were in the 13 th century and used a style that reflected the courtly circles from which it emerged. It is, indeed, believed to have emerged from Sicilian courts. Giacomo da Lentino and subsequent poets are the ones who laid the structural foundation of the Petrarchan sonnet. This is accounted for as early as 1235 (Spiller, 1992). The musicality of the sonnet was beset on the genre by the third generation of sonneteers (Spiller, 1992). Before them, Gittone d’Arezzo and his followers displaced the elevated and courtly style of sonnets and imbued it with the communal lives and concerns of citizens. Then, the generation following them, the stilnovesti , self-proclaimed new sweet style poets vested musicality onto the sonnet. Only after them came Francis Petrarch, according to this reading of the history of Italian poetry. Hence, Petrarch, the main Italian sonneteer, is the representative of the fourth generation of the studied genre. The Structure of the Italian Sonnet: Form, meter, and rhyme The Italian sonnet is organized along with a canzone-stanza scheme whereby its distinctiveness and popularity lie (Wilkins, 1915). It follows a prescriptive pattern or stanzas which makes all the verses tune harmoniously. This distribution along stanzas is what has given the genre the quality of canzone . Indeed, the term refers to a medieval provincial song from which the sonnet is believed to have derived its form, with some variation. The stanzaic form of a sonnet is that of a fourteen-line poem. It is divided into an octave and a sestet (Lewis, 2000). The octave is often divided into quatrains, viz. in two parts (Wilkins, 1915):   * Quatrain: 4 lines   * Quatrain: 4 lines   * Sestet: 6 lines The usual rhyme for an Italian sonnet is that of abbaabba (for the octave) cdecde (for the sestet) but there are variations. Older versions reflect an ABABABAB scheme in the quatrain. However, the main characteristic of an Italian sonnet old or new is the clear division into two parts (quatrains) separated by a rhetorical turn of argument. The Italian sonnet also reflects an iambic pentameter. Accordingly, lines are ten-syllable five-foot. An iamb is a two-syllable poetic foot composed of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (Strachan, Terry, 2000): ˘/ ˘/ ˘/ ˘/ ˘/ Language and Thematic Organization of a Sonnet The possibilities that Italian sonnets offered a large room for the exploration of melodramatic themes are large. The metric and rhythmic organization allow for dramatic themes to be c