In the Western poetic tradition, meters are customarily grouped according to a characteristic metrical foot and the number of feet per line. Thus, “iambic pentameter” is a meter comprising five feet per line, in which the predominant kind of foot is the “iamb.” This metric system originated in ancient Greek poetry, and was used...
A sestina (also, sextina, sestine, or sextain) is a highly structured poem consisting of six six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (called its envoy or tornada), for a total of thirty-nine lines. The same set of six words ends the lines of each of the six-line stanzas, but in a different order each time;...
he sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe. The term “sonnet” derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning “little song”. By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme...
Terza Rima Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. Recently it was used by Jonas Hyde in Lament for Lady Beth. Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A,...
Follow J/H!