Practice question · Select all that apply
Which are true of the volta?
Hints
- Three of these describe the turn correctly; one confuses turning with stopping.
- A sonnet that simply changes topic has not turned.
Show the answer
- B. It may be a reversal, a qualification or a widening
- C. It falls at line 9 in the Italian sonnet
- D. It marks a change in relation to the subject
Why
The volta changes the relation to the subject, not the subject. A poem that abandons its topic at line nine has stopped rather than turned, which is the commonest way an apprentice sonnet fails while appearing to have the right shape.
Practise Poetic Traditions II: the Sonnet and the Golden Age
The app has 3 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Literature I is free to start.
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