Volta (literature)

The volta is a rhetorical shift or dramatic change in thought and/or emotion. Turns are seen in all types of written poetry. In the last two decades, the volta has become conventionally used as a word for this, stemming supposedly from technique specific mostly to sonnets. Volta is not, in fact, a term used by many earlier critics^[1] when they address the idea of a turn in a poem, and they usually are not discussing the sonnet form. It is a common Italian word more often used of the idea of a time or an occasion than a turnabout or swerve.