Paradoxes and Oxymorons | Style
Sonnet
“Paradoxes and Oxymorons” is not a sonnet, but it approximates one in form and subject matter, and critics reviewing Shadow Train regularly comment on the collection as a variation on a sonnet sequence. Historically, sonnets consist of fourteen lines. The Petrarchan sonnet, named after the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch, has an octave (eight lines) that rhymes abbaabba, and a sestet (six lines) that rhymes cdecde or sometimes cdccdc, while the English, or Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains (four lines) that rhyme abab cdcd efef, and a...
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