Question

How does the structure of this Italian sonnet by Petrarch support its theme?

Answer 1

In my opinion, the correct answer is D. The octave builds an idea about love, while the sestet comments on that idea. This is a typical structure of a Petrarchan sonnet, where the octave presents a problem, and the sestet resolves it. In this particular case, the octave is about love that the poet feels for his beloved. We only suspect that something isn't right, and only in the last line of the octave we see that the beloved has probably died: "Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows." The sestet talks about this love in contrast with the way it did in the octave; it talks about the speaker's grief and the impossibility to live a meaningful life without her.