ses·tet

(sĕ-stĕt′)

1. A group of six lines of poetry, especially the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.

2. A poem or stanza containing six lines.

[Italian sestetto, from sesto, sixth, from Latin sextus; see s(w)eks in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sestet

sestett

sestette

1. (Poetry) prosody the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet

2. (Poetry) prosody any six-line stanza

3. (Music, other) another word for sextet¹

[C19: from Italian sestetto, from sesto sixth, from Latin sextus, from sex six]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ses•tet

(sɛˈstɛt, ˈsɛs tɛt)

n.

a group or stanza of six lines, esp. the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet.

[1795–1805; < Italian sestetto sextet]

sestet

A group of six lines.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	sestet - the cardinal number that is the sum of five and one 6, Captain Hicks, half a dozen, hexad, sextuplet, sise, six, sixer, VI, sextet digit, figure - one of the elements that collectively form a system of numeration; "0 and 1 are digits"
	2.	sestet - six performers or singers who perform together sextette, sextet musical group, musical organisation, musical organization - an organization of musicians who perform together
	3.	sestet - a set of six similar things considered as a unit sextette, sextet set - a group of things of the same kind that belong together and are so used; "a set of books"; "a set of golf clubs"; "a set of teeth"
	4.	sestet - a musical composition written for six performers sextet, sextette musical composition, opus, piece of music, composition, piece - a musical work that has been created; "the composition is written in four movements"
	5.	sestet - a rhythmic group of six lines of verse stanza - a fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem

Translations

sestet

[sesˈtet] N → sexteto m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

sestet

n (Mus) → Sextett nt; (Poet) → Sestine f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Wyatt, it should be observed, generally departs from the Petrarchan rime-scheme, on the whole unfortunately, by substituting a third quatrain for the first four lines of the sestet. That is, while Petrarch's rime-arrangement is either a b b a a b b a c d c d c d , or a b b a a b b a c d e c d e , Wyatt's is usually a b b a a b b a c d d c e e .

View in context

Quatrains are frequent in the work, but some poems deviate from the trend and employ sestet stanzas.

Time Belongs to God and Other Poems

which conclude "Then she was dead"--and a sestet, the last six

Origin stories. (ARS POETICA)

In "Catching Fire: 'The Windhover,"' Helen Vendler distinguishes between the ways in which the poem's speaker observes the bird in the octave but inscapes it in the sestet, undergoing "the exhilaration of suddenly inscaping the bird into a single complex gestalt." The essay vividly analyzes the "sudden transfiguring of the world into intelligibility--brought about by a stunning fusion of sense [and] intellectual imagination." Provocatively, and counter to generations of Hopkins critics, Vendler suggests how and why the poem does not culminate in "a theological and redemptive tableau." Vendler's particular discussion of "species-manifestation" in "The Windhover" complements Julia F.

Introduction: How to Read Hopkins

One, the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, usually consists of an eight-line octave followed by a six-line sestet, with a rhyme scheme that is usually ABBA, ABBA, CDE, CDE.

TWO WORD-UNIT RETEP SONNETS

(7) We see at once, moreover, that Astrophil shapes each of the declarations forming the sonnet's sestet through dementiens.

Cupid, Choice, and Rewriting Petrarch in the Early Sonnets of Astrophil and Stella

group) and a sestet (six-line group) as in the Italianate Petrarchan

The "stretched metre of an antique song": jazzin' the food of love

The sestet is no doubt acceptable, but it is not a common pattern.

A Naked Tree: Love Sonnets to C.S. Lewis and Other Poems

One could say that the sonnets sent to the South African review were Miltonic for Anon, both by virtue of the form adhered to (Italian sonnet: an octave followed by a sestet), and the reference to current political events.

Pessoa and Borges: in the margins of Milton

The sonnet, with the rhetorical finality implicit in the relationship between octave and sestet, complements the prologue in allowing her to underscore the dangers inherent in a "class set from class" organization of Arcadian life (109).

A. Mary F. Robinson's The New Arcadia: aestheticism and the fin-de siecle social problem poem

In the sonnets, however, they are coordinate: the rigid sonic architecture of the sonnet requires certain spatial deployments of meaning, both in the quickening of rhymes between octet and sestet and even moreso in the volta itself.

To organize beauty: the sonnets of Mani Leyb