Introduction to Italian Poetry Quotes

“it is not possible to write Italian poetry and avoid the hendecasyllable, for “every true Italian poet has the hendecasyllable in his blood.”
― Luciano Rebay, Introduction to Italian Poetry: A Dual-Language Book

“The caccia, literally “hunt,” a free-verse composition, was used from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries to describe lively scenes of hunting, fishing, marketing, love, or battle.”
― Luciano Rebay, Introduction to Italian Poetry: A Dual-Language Book

“Other typical verse forms represented here are the terza rima, the caccia, and the madrigal. The terza rima, consisting of tercets in linked rhyme (aba-bcb-cdc, etc.), was created by Dante (for whom the number three had a mystic significance) and is of course famous as the rhyme scheme of the Divine Comedy.”
― Luciano Rebay, Introduction to Italian Poetry: A Dual-Language Book

“Nearly one-third of these are sonnets, a verse form whose invention is credited to the Sicilian poet Jacopo da Lentini in the first half of the thirteenth century.”
― Luciano Rebay, Introduction to Italian Poetry: A Dual-Language Book