Spenserian stanza

(noun)

Fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queene. Each stanza contains nine lines in total, the rhyme scheme of these lines is "ababbcbcc. "

Related Terms

Examples of Spenserian stanza in the following topics:

  • The Rise of the Vernacular

    • New literary genres such as the essay and new metrical forms such as the sonnet and Spenserian stanza made their appearance.

  • Mantua

    • This fresco of the powerful Gonzaga head of family resides in the Stanza degli Sposi of Palazzo Ducale.

  • Painting in the High Renaissance

    • As part of this project, Raphael was asked to paint in the Pope's library, or the Stanza della Segnatura.

  • Sheet of Blank Chromatic-Scale Clock Faces

    • Modules typically set a stanza of lyrics (though occasionally a couplet).
    • Module boundaries are also usually made apparent by poetic structure (end of a group of rhyming lines—couplet or stanza) or surface features of the song (clear rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic arrival; change in instrumentation or volume; return to beginning of a previously heard module; etc.).
    • The strophe modules themselves tend to set a stanza of text each with music that is self-contained and harmonically closed.

  • Raphael

    • The Stanza della Segnatura contains The School of Athens, Poetry, Disputa, and Law.

  • Sanskrit

    • Kalidasa was the foremost Classical Sanskrit poet, with a simple but beautiful style, while later poetry shifted toward more intricate techniques including stanzas that read the same backwards and forwards, words that could be split to produce different meanings, and sophisticated metaphors.

  • Cadence

    • Stories are also divided into paragraphs, chapters, stanzas, scenes, or episodes, each with their own endings, to help us keep track of things and understand what is going on.

  • Mixing Academic and Colloquial Styles

    • Poems are structured in lines and stanzas—how could a poem's structure help a student improve the structure of an academic essay?

  • Transitions, Signal Phrases, and Pointing Words

    • Paragraph three: "Browning further subverts the metrical conventions established in the opening stanza by … switching to iambic pentameter when acknowledging that unmotivated events can and do occur."