Analysis of Sonnet: Love and the Gentle

Dante Alighieri 1265 (Florence) – 1321 (Ravenna)



Love and the gentle heart are one same thing,
Even as the wise man in his ditty saith.
Each, of itself, would be such life in death
As rational soul bereft of reasoning.
'Tis Nature makes them when she loves: a king
Love is, whose palace where he sojourneth
Is call'd the Heart; there draws he quiet breath
At first, with brief or longer slumbering.
Then beauty seen in virtuous womankind
Will make the eyes desire, and through the heart
Send the desiring of the eyes again;
Where often it abides so long enshrined
That Love at length out of his sleep will start.
And women feel the same for worthy men.


Scheme ABBAABBACCDCCD
Poetic Form
Metre 1001011111 10101101101 1101111101 11001011100 1101111101 11110111 1101111101 1111110100 110101001 11010100101 10010010101 1101011101 1111111111 0101011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 598
Words 114
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 476
Words per stanza (avg) 112
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 18, 2023

34 sec read
132

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, simply referred to as Dante, was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. more…

All Dante Alighieri poems | Dante Alighieri Books

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