Volta

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A significant change in style or subject within a poem can highlight critical moments in narrative storytelling while also embodying a shift in emotional or thematic content in art
2. A turning point in a poem marking a change in tone or argument
3. A movement in poetry where the thought or emotion shifts direction

Etymology: The word "volta" arrived in English from Italian, where it meant "turn" in the sense of a movement or occasion, from the same root that gave Italian "volgere," to turn. Its most striking feature is how narrow its English use became: it names the moment in a sonnet, usually the octave's close, where the argument swerves toward a new idea or a reversal. A poet's whole structure seems to pivot on that single turn. The word is a doublet of "volte," the English term for a sideways-turning movement in dressage and a dance step. Both descend from the same Italian source, but they entered English separately and took different paths, so one came to describe horses and dancers while the other settled into the vocabulary of poetry.

Synonyms: turn, revolution, circuit, loop, twist