sonnet —Translation by Joseph Auslander of Petrarch, While the poem as a whole aims at praising love, the focus shifts at the break between octave and sestet. In the first eight lines, the speaker poses a series of questions in admiration of a beloved; the last six lament the man who has not experienced love. Example of Shakespearean sonnet —From Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 The beloved, whose beauty Shakespeare idolizes here, is given the gift of immortality by the poet; the first two quatrains primarily address different ways in which the physical beauty of the material world inherently dims, fades, and/or falls short of ideal beauty at some point. In the third quatrain the poet presents his beloved with the gift of immortality in his lines of verse. The changing rhymes emphasize the dualist nature of beauty (how those things which are beautiful in their prime inevitably grow old, fade, and die), while the alternating pattern provides continuity. The independently rhymed couplet introduces yet another shift in the poem; the speaker reiterates how his beautiful beloved will be eternally preserved as long as men can breathe and see, and as long as the poem exists the beloved does, too. Comparing sonnet sequences The term sonnet sequence might be rephrased as series or cycle of sonnets. Sonnets become more significant when they are read in the order that the poet places them, as opposed to reading them at random. Thus, the most unusual aspect of such a sequence is the sense of a “unity within a larger unity." Sonnet sequences do not follow a spelled-out narrative progression, nor are they simply compilations of random poems with similar themes, “they are something in between." The structure lies in the beginnings and endings of the sequences, and in their overall thematic advancements. The beginnings of the sequences usually contain sonnets that “introduce characters, plot, and themes”. The commencing sonnets suggest an account of the birth of a love “experience” and hopefully foresee a happy ending. However, there is often also a sense of knowing the actual outcome of the sequence. In turn, the idea that the poet is in the middle of the experience, and knows its ending at the same time gives the sequence a “structural and narrative control”. The ultimate goal of the poet in both English and Italian sequences is to win the beloved, which he can only do if he