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Stanza Forms

- In poetry, a stanza is used to describe the main building block of a poem. It is a unit of
poetry composed of lines that relate to a similar thought or topic—like a paragraph in
prose or a verse in a song. Every stanza in a poem has its own concept and serves a
unique purpose. A stanza may be arranged according to rhyming patterns and meters—
the syllabic beats of a line. It can also be a free-flowing verse that has no formal
structure.

What Is a Stanza in Poetry?

- A stanza is a series of lines grouped together in order to divide a poem; the structure of a
stanza is often (though not always) repeated throughout the poem. Stanzas are separated
from other stanzas by line breaks. Each stanza is a standalone unit that can either make
up an entire poem or can build a bigger poem with other stanzas.

What Purpose Do Stanzas Serve in Poetry?

- In Italian, the word “stanza” means “room.” Stanzas, then function in a poem like rooms
function in a house. Acclaimed poet and former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins says:
“You’re taking the reader on a tour of the poem, room by room, like taking someone
through your house and describing it.” In this way, stanzas can be particularly revealing:
the structure of a poem’s stanzas says a lot about the poem, just as the rooms in a house
say a lot about the house.

A stanza can reveal the following about a poem:

● Structure. A poem always has a structural framework in place. Stanzas are part of a
poem’s architecture.
● Pattern. In formal verse poetry, in which the poem follows a rhyme scheme and meter,
the first stanza sets the pattern for the overall poem. The rhyme and rhythm used will
repeat in the second stanza, and so on.

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● Organization. Often, the lines of a stanza explore a thought. As the poet moves onto the
next thought, they might progress to a new stanza.
● Set a mood. A break in between stanzas may signal a shift in mood or emotional tone.
● Shape. The space around and between stanzas (or lack thereof), and the pattern they
create on the page, defines the shape of a poem.

What Are the Different Types of Stanza?

- Stanzas, like poems, come in all shapes and sizes. There are many different types and
they are often classified by meters, rhyme schemes or how many groups of lines they
have. Here are some different types of stanzas.
● Monostich. A one-line stanza. Monostich can also be an entire poem.
● Couplet. A stanza with two lines that rhyme.
● Tercet. A stanza with three lines that either all rhyme or the first and the third line
rhyme—which is called an ABA rhyming pattern. A poem made up of tercets and
concludes with a couplet is called a “terza rima.”
● Quatrain. A stanza with four lines with the second and fourth lines rhyming.
● Quintain. A stanza with five lines.
● Sestet. A stanza with six lines.
● Septet. A stanza with seven lines. This is sometimes called a “rhyme royal.”
● Octave. A stanza with eight lines written in iambic pentameter, or ten syllable beats per
line. The more lines a stanza has the more varieties of rhyme and meter patterns. For
example, “ottava rima” is an eight-line stanza with the specific rhyme scheme in which
the first six lines have an alternating rhyme pattern and a couplet as the final two lines.
● Isometric stanza. Isometric stanzas have the same syllabic beats, or the same meter, in
every line.
● Heterometric stanza. A stanza in which every line is a different length.
● Spenserian stanza. Named after Edward Spenser’s unique stanza structure in his poem
“The Faerie Queene.” A Spenserian stanza has nine line, eight in iambic pentameter—ten
syllables in a line with emphasis on the second beat of each syllable—and a final line in
iambic hexameter—a twelve-syllable beat line.
● Ballad stanza. Often used in folk songs, a ballad stanza is a rhyming quatrain with four
emphasized beats (eight syllables) in the first and third lines, and three emphasized beats
(six syllables) in the second and fourth lines.

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- While there are any number of ways that poets can use stanzas to tell a story, the two
broad approaches are formal verse and free verse.

Formal verse.
- Formal verse is poetry that follows a strict repeating pattern, like sonnets or limericks.
Stanzas in formal verse will have a matching meter and rhyme scheme. Robert Frost was
an advocate for structure in poetry, and famously said that poetry in free verse was like
playing tennis without a net. William Shakespeare’s sonnets are a classic example of how
stanzas are used in formal verse.

Free verse.
- In free verse, poetry does not follow a strict rhyme or meter. Stanzas of different types
can be used within a poem. Walt Whitman was the pioneer of free verse, using different
kinds of stanzas of varying line lengths. “To a Locomotive in Winter” Walt Whitman
- Blank verse is a non-rhyming iambic pentameter, usually stichic. Under the influence of
Shakespeare it became a widely used verse form for English dramatic verse, but it is also
used, under the influence of Milton, for non-dramatic verse.

- Couplet is the name for two rhyming lines of verse following immediately after each
other. The heroic couplet, popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries consists of
two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter. An octosyllabic couplet is also sometimes
called a short couplet. The regular metre and the rhyme pattern of the couplet, usually
with end-stopped lines, provides comparatively small units (two lines in fact) in which to
make a point. Especially eighteenth-century poets used the form to create satirical
contrasts within the couplet. In the following example from Pope’s Imitations of Horace
especially the lines “To prove, that Luxury could never hold; / And place, on good
security, his Gold” present a blatant contradiction between words and action in a
completely harmonious (regular metre, noticeable rhyme) poetic form. In consequence
the reader notices the contradiction somewhat belatedly, almost as an afterthought. The
effect is that of thinly disguised satire.

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- A tercet, sometimes also called a triplet, is a stanza with three lines of the same rhyme
(aaa or two rhyming lines embracing a line without rhyme (axa).

- 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.)

- The quatrain is one of the most common and popular stanza forms in English poetry. It
is a stanza comprising four lines of verse with various rhyme patterns. When written in
iambic pentameter and rhyming abab it is called heroic quatrain

- The ballad stanza is a variant of the quatrain. Most commonly, lines of iambic tetrameter
alternate with iambic trimeter (also called chevy-chase stanza after one of the oldest
poems written in this form). The rhyme scheme is usually abcb, sometimes also abab.

- The rhyme royal is a seven-line stanza in iambic pentameter which rhymes ababbcc. It is
called rhyme royal because King James I of Scotland used it, though he was not the first
to do so; Chaucer employed the stanza in Troilus and Criseyde much earlier.

- 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 most famous use of the stanza form in
English poetry was made by Byron in Don Juan, who skillfully employs the stanza form
for comic effect; in the following example the last line renders the slightly pompous
lovesickness of the first seven lines quite ridiculous.

- The Spenserian stanza, famously used by Edmund Spenser in The Faerie Queene, has nine
lines rhyming ababbcbcc, the first eight lines are iambic pentameter, the last line is an
alexandrine, which breaks the slight monotony of the pentameters and is often employed
to emphasise a point. Here is Spenser’s description of the Redcross Knight; the last line
emphasises the knight’s valour (he feared nothing but everyone feared him):

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But on his brest a bloudie Crosse he bore,

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,

And dead as living ever him ador’d:

Upon his shield the like was also scor’d,

For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had:

Right faithfull true he was in deede and word,

But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;

Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.

(From: Spenser, The Faerie Queene)

- The sonnet is a lyric poem of (usually) fourteen lines in iambic pentameter which became
popular in England in the sixteenth century . Later sonnet writers sometimes varied the
number of lines between ten and sixteen lines, but still called the poem a sonnet (George
Meredith for instance in his sonnet sequence Modern Love used sixteen lines, Gerard
Manley Hopkins wrote sonnets that had ten-and-a-half lines).

- One distinguishes between two main rhyme patterns in the sonnet: The Italian or Petrarchan
sonnet is divided into an octave or octet (eight lines) rhyming abbaabba and a sestet
rhyming cdecde or some variation (for example cdccdc). Very often this type of sonnet
develops two sides of a question or a problem and a solution, one in the octave and, after a
turn often introduced by ‘but’, ‘yet’ or a similar conjunction that indicates a change of
argument, another in the sestet. In the following sonnet the speaker laments his inability to
serve God on account of his blindness in the octave, but in the sestet takes courage again
from the thought that God will not expect more of him than he can do and that his best

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servitude is to bear his lot in patience. Milton varies the form slightly by placing the turn
(“but”) in the last line of the octave.

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my day, in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”

I fondly ask; but patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’er land and ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

(Milton, On My Blindness)

- The English or Shakespearean sonnet usually falls into three quatrains and one final
couplet. The rhyme pattern is most commonly abab cdcd efef gg. In the English sonnet the
turn often occurs in the concluding couplet, which operates rather like a punch line, as in
the following example. The first twelve lines lament the all-powerful and destructive
influence of time, but the couplet ventures to express some hope that writing poetry might
in fact overcome this and preserve the poet’s love forever.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

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But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

O, none, unless, this miracle have might

That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

(Shakespeare, Sonnet 65)

- An important variant of the English sonnet is the Spenserian sonnet which links the
quatrains with rhymes: abab bcbc cdcd ee.

Unrighteous Lord of love, what law is this,

That me thou makest thus tormented be:

The whiles she lordeth in licentious blisse

Of her freewill, scorning both thee and me.

See how the Tyranesse doth joy to see

The huge massácres which her eyes do make:

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And humbled harts brings captives unto thee,

That thou of them mayst mightie vengeance take.

But her proud hart doe thou a little shake

And that high look, with which she doth comptroll

All this worlds pride, bow to a baser make,

And al her faults in thy black booke enroll.

That I may laugh at her in equall sort,

As she doth laugh at me and makes my pain her sport.

(Spenser, Amoretti, Sonnet 10)

- The limerick is used mainly for nonsense verse. It consists of five lines, two longer ones
(trimeter, one trochaic foot, two anapaests), two shorter ones (anapaestic dimeter) and
another trimeter (one trochee, two anapaests). Edward Lear, one of the most famous
limerick- and nonsense verse writers, insisted that the first and the fifth line of the limerick
should end with the same word, usually a place name.

There was an old person of Dutton

Whose head was as small as a button.

So, to make it look big,

He purchased a wig

And rapidly rushed about Dutton

(Lear, from: Book of Nonsense Verse)

- The villanelle has a rather intricate verse and rhyme pattern. It originated in France and
reproduces the circular patterns of a peasant dance. The villanelle has five tercets rhyming
aba and a final quatrain rhyming abaa. The lines of the first tercet provide a kind of refrain,
a recurring repetition of one or more lines. Thus the first line of the first tercet is repeated

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as the last line of the second and fourth tercet, the third line of the first tercet is repeated as
the last line of the third and the fifth tercet. (One really needs to look at the example to
work this out.) Both lines (first and third line of first tercet) form the last two lines of the
concluding quatrain. A famous example is Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do not go gentle into
that good night”, where the highly organised and artificial but also playful form of the
villanelle at first seems to contrast starkly with the poem’s topic: the sick and dying father.
But the form, which has to bend language into this disciplined playfulness, effectively helps
to express the speaker’s overwhelming desire to instil a spirit of resistance and a new
passion for living in his father. [die wiederholten Zeilen line 1, line 2, line 3, jeweils farbig
machen.]

Do not go gentle into that good night, a (line 1)

Old age should burn and rave at close of day; b (line 2)

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. a (line 3)

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, a

Because their words had forked no lightning they b

Do not go gentle into that good night. a (line 1)

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright a

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, b

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. a (line 3)

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, a

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, b

Do not go gentle into that good night. a (line 1)

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Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight a

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, b

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. a (line 3)

And you, my father, there on the sad height, a

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. b

Do not go gentle into that good night. a (line 1)

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. a (line 3)

Composite and Irregular Forms

Quite frequently poets combine various forms or employ no regular formal rhyme pattern, though
rhyme and metre are nonetheless used. John Milton’s poem Lycidas for instance is written in an
irregular form: The iambic pentameter is at irregular intervals interspersed with a trimeter. John
Donne frequently combines various forms into a regular composite form. For instance The
Canonization, a poem with five stanzas of nine lines each varies iambic pentameter with iambic
tetrameter and a concluding line in iambic trimeter. The speaker is obviously in a temper because
people interfere with his love life. The rapid change between pentameter and tetrameter expresses
his irritation and the irregular flow of speech is conveyed as he switches between the slightly
slower pentameter and the slightly quicker tetrameter. The final trimeter brings the stanza to an
emphatic (because notably shorter) conclusion.

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For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love, (pentameter)

Or chide my palsy, or my gout, (tetrameter)

My five grey hairs, or ruined fortune, flout, (pentameter)

With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, (pentameter)

Take you a course, get you a place, (tetrameter)

Observe his Honor or His Grace, (tetrameter)

Or the King’s real, or his stampèd face (pentameter)

Contémplate; what you will, approve, (pentameter)

So you will let me love. (trimeter)

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Verse Forms and Stanza Forms

A sequence of lines within a poem are often separated into sub-units, the stanza. Two aspects of
stanza form are particularly relevant for the analysis of poetry: First, a stanza form is always
used to some purpose, it serves a specific function in each poem. There are no general rules
about such functions, the student or critic analysing the poem has to decide in each case afresh
which is the function in the particular poem he or she is dealing with. Second, well-known stanza
forms stand in a certain tradition. The sonnet for instance started its career in English poetry as
a love poem. When John Donne starts using the sonnet for religious topics he places himself
within a tradition of love poetry. The very choice of the form contributes to the intensely personal
explorations of the speaker's relation to God in Donne’s religious sonnets. It is thus useful to be
aware of the origin and history of a stanza form, since this enables one to judge whether a poet
makes use of a tradition or writes against it.

There are a great number of different stanza forms available to a poet writing in the English (and
that generally means European) tradition. The main ones are given in the following list.

Stichic verse is a continuous run of lines of the same length and the same metre. Most narrative
verse is written in such continuous lines. Lyric poetry, because it is closer to song, usually uses
stanzas.

As wreath of snow, on mountain-breast

Slides from the rock that gave it rest,

Poor Ellen glided from her stay,

And at the Monarch’s feet she lay:

No word her choking voice commands;

She show’d the ring, she clasp’d her hands.

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O! not a moment could he brook,

The generous prince, that suppliant look!

Gently he raised her; and, the while,

Check’d with a glance the circle’s smile;

Graceful but grave, her brow he kiss’d,

And bade her terrors be dismiss’d:

‘Yes, fair, the wandering poor Fitz-James

The fealty of Scotland claims.

T o him thy woes, thy wishes bring;

He will redeem his signet ring.

(From: Scott, The Lady of the Lake, Canto VI)

Blank verse is a non-rhyming iambic pentameter, usually stichic. Under the influence of
Shakespeare it became a widely used verse form for English dramatic verse, but it is also used,
under the influence of Milton, for non-dramatic verse.

[...]

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again;

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

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That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope

[...]

(From: Wordsworth, Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey)

Couplet is the name for two rhyming lines of verse following immediately after each other. The
heroic couplet, popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries consists of two lines of
rhyming iambic pentameter. An octosyllabic couplet is also sometimes called a short couplet.
The regular metre and the rhyme pattern of the couplet, usually with end-stopped lines, provides
comparatively small units (two lines in fact) in which to make a point. Especially eighteenth-
century poets used the form to create satirical contrasts within the couplet. In the following
example from Pope’s Imitations of Horace especially the lines “To prove, that Luxury could
never hold; / And place, on good security, his Gold” present a blatant contradiction between
words and action in a completely harmonious (regular metre, noticeable rhyme) poetic form. In
consequence the reader notices the contradiction somewhat belatedly, almost as an afterthought.
The effect is that of thinly disguised satire.

Time was, a sober Englishman wou’d knock

His servants up, and rise by five a clock,

Instruct his Family in ev’ry rule,

And send his Wife to Church, his Son to school.

To worship like his Fathers was his care;

To teach their frugal Virtues to his Heir;

To prove, that Luxury could never hold;

And place, on good Security, his Gold.

(From: Pope, Imitations of Horace, Ep. II.i)

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A tercet, sometimes also called a triplet, is a stanza with three lines of the same rhyme (aaa or
two rhyming lines embracing a line without rhyme (axa).

Released from the noise of the butcher and baker,

Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her,

And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker;

From chiding the footmen, and watching the lasses,

From Nell that burned milk too, and Tom that broke glasses

(Sad mischiefs through which a good housekeeper passes!);

From some real care, but more fancied vexation,

From a life parti-coloured, half reason, half passion,

Here lies after all the best wench in the nation.

(From: Prior, Jinny the Just)

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.)

The snow came down last night like moths

Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,

Covered the town with simple cloths.

Absolute snow lies rumpled on

What shellbursts scattered and deranged,

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Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.

As if it did not know they’d changed,

Snow smoothly clasps the roofs of homes

Fear-gutted, trustless and estranged

(From: Wilbur, First Snow in Alsace)

The quatrain is one of the most common and popular stanza forms in English poetry. It is a
stanza comprising four lines of verse with various rhyme patterns. When written in iambic
pentameter and rhyming abab it is called heroic quatrain:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

(From: Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard)

Tennyson used a quatrain rhyming abba for his famous poem In Memoriam A.H.H. and the
stanza form has since derived its name from this poem – the Memoriam stanza

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