Do Petrarchan poems use iambic pentameter…or do they need to?
Typically in English they do, but they don’t absolutely need to. For example, Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella has a number of poems written in iambic hexameter (6, not 5 poetic feet). Also, Petrarchan refers to a style of poetry, not necessarily to sonnets, though these are what we most often think of when we think of Petrarchanism. A poem could be Petrarchan in style but not use iambic pentameter. Also, I’m not sure about meter for continental poetry, but Petrarch, after all, wrote in Italian, and his follows in Spanish, French and other languages as well.
