sestina

Etymology

From Italian sestina. Doublet of sextain.

Why this word is great

SESTINA — [Noun] A highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet, totaling thirty-nine lines, or a chord comprising the first six members of the harmonic series. From Italian sestina, from sesto ("sixth"), from Latin sextus ("sixth"). Unlike the sonnet (which condenses thought into fourteen tightly rhymed lines) or the villanelle (which circles its refrain like a moth around a flame), the sestina is a labyrinth of repetition, its six end-words rotating through stanzas with the inevitability of seasons. It is the mathematical precision of a spider’s web, the slow accumulation of meaning as the same words return in new contexts, and the final tercet’s quiet resolution—like a key turning in a lock. A form that insists, against entropy, on order.

noun

  1. A highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet or envoy, for a total of thirty-nine lines.“Although the sestina is of medieval French origin, attributed to Arnaut Daniel in the late twelfth century and used by other Gallic poets and by Italians including Petrarch and Dante (from whom it received its Italian name), […]”
  2. A chord comprising the first six members of the harmonic series.