Sestina¶

sestina · form · validated

Six sestets and a tercet in which the same six end-words recur in a fixed rotating order rather than rhyming. The checker verifies the end-word rotation only, not metre.

Provenance¶

Source: Attributed to Arnaut Daniel, 12th century; the attribution is conventional
Attribution: reference — attested in a standard reference rather than traced to an origin
Checkability: self — decidable from the text and its parameters alone
Attested: codified — formulated as a rule by a tradition rather than declared by an author

Details¶

Kind: restrictive
Languages: en
Requires: tokens
Deterministic: yes
In other languages: Sestine (de), Sextine (fr)

Prompt hint¶

Use the same six end-words in every stanza, rotating them in the fixed order.

Examples¶

true-rotation¶

en — this text satisfies the procedure.

x one
x two
x three
x four
x five
x six
x six
x one
x five
x two
x four
x three
x three
x six
x four
x one
x two
x five
x five
x three
x two
x six
x one
x four
x four
x five
x one
x three
x six
x two
x two
x four
x six
x five
x three
x one

Source: constructed example; the rotation is the classical 6-1-5-2-4-3

repeated-stanza¶

en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.

x one
x two
x three
x four
x five
x six
x one
x two
x three
x four
x five
x six

Source: constructed counterexample