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Home , Heroic couplet, Ottava rima, Rhyme royal, Sestet

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Subject: ENGLISH Class: B.A. Part 1 English Hons., Paper-1, Group B Topic: Important and verse forms Lecture No: 200

By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga Email: [email protected] Website: www.sunitasinha.com Mob No: 9934917117

IMPORTANT STANZA AND VERSE FORMS

Definition of Stanza A stanza is a set of lines in a poem grouped together and set apart from other in the poem either by a double space or by different indentation. Poems may contain any number of stanzas, depending on the author’s wishes and the structure in which the poet is writing. Types of Stanzas While there are many dozens of obscure forms, here are a few common stanza examples: : Couplet is the name for two rhyming lines of verse following immediately after each other. 2

Tercet: A , sometimes also called a triplet, is a stanza with three lines of the same (aaa or two rhyming lines embracing a line without rhyme (axa). : The quatrain is one of the most common and popular stanza forms in English . It is a stanza comprising four lines of verse with various rhyme patterns like- AAAA, AABB, ABBA, or ABAB : A stanza of 5 lines Sestain or Sestet: A stanza of 6 lines (when discussing Italian the appropriate term is sestet; the Italian form starts with an octave and is concluded by a sestet) Septet: A 7-line stanza of any kind is called a septet. : The rhyme royal is a seven-line stanza in which ababbcc. : The terza rima is a variant of the tercet famously used by Dante in his Divine Comedy. The terza rima uses a chain rhyme, the second line of each stanza rhymes with the first and the third line of the next stanza (aba bcb cdc etc.) Octave: A stanza of 8 lines in iambic pentameter or , usually with the ABBA ABBA : The ottava rima derives from Italian models like the terza rima and the sonnet do; it is a stanza with eight lines rhyming abababcc. :The Spenserian stanza, famously used by in The Faerie Queene, has nine lines rhyming ababbcbcc, the first eight lines are iambic pentameter, the last line is an , which breaks the slight monotony of the pentameters and is often employed to emphasise a point. Blank verse: Blank Verse is a non-rhyming iambic pentameter 3

Heroic Couplet:The , popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries consists of two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter.

********************************************************** \ By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga