stanza

/ˈstænzə/

/ˈstænzə/

Other forms: stanzas

Stanzas are the building blocks of formal poetry, like paragraphs in a story or verses in a song. They usually have the same number of lines each time, and often use a rhyming pattern that repeats with each new stanza.

Shakespeare was the master of the stanza. His sonnets had three stanzas that were each four lines long, and then a two-line stanza at the end, all with a very particular rhyme and rhythm pattern. Poems with stanzas always have some sort of structure to them, but not all poetry uses stanzas, for example — free verse tends to be wild poetry without structural rules.

Definitions of stanza

1. noun

   a fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem
   types:

   couplet

   a stanza consisting of two successive lines of verse; usually rhymed

   octave

   a rhythmic group of eight lines of verse

   sestet

   a rhythmic group of six lines of verse

   envoi, envoy

   a brief stanza concluding certain forms of poetry

   quatrain

   a stanza of four lines

   Spenserian stanza

   a stanza with eight lines of iambic pentameter and a concluding Alexandrine with the rhyme pattern abab bcbc c

   strophe

   one section of a lyric poem or choral ode in classical Greek drama

   antistrophe

   the section of a choral ode answering a previous strophe in classical Greek drama; the second of two metrically corresponding sections in a poem

   rhyme royal

   a stanza form having seven lines of iambic pentameter; introduced by Chaucer

   ottava rima

   a stanza of eight lines of heroic verse with the rhyme scheme abababcc

   tercet, triplet

   a rhythmic group of three lines of verse

   septet

   a rhythmic group of seven lines of verse

   elegiac stanza

   a quatrain in iambic pentameter with abab rhyme scheme

   closed couplet

   a rhymed couplet that forms a complete syntactic unit

   heroic couplet

   a couplet consisting of two rhymed lines of iambic pentameter and written in an elevated style

   heroic stanza

   a quatrain consisting of two heroic couplets written in an elevated style; the rhyme scheme is abab

   type of:

   text, textual matter

   the words of something written