Structure of Poetry
Stanza: a group of lines set off from others by a blank line or indentation.
Verse: are stanzas with no set number of lines that make up units based on sense.
Canto: is a stanza pattern found in medieval and modern long poetry.
Stanza:
In Italian, the word “stanza” means “room. Like the rooms of a house, which are used to divide a house into parts, stanzas are 'rooms' used to divide and organize similar parts of writing. They are easy to identify because they usually are set apart by double spacing or indentation. A division of a poem consisting of two or more lines arranged together as a unit. The structure of a stanza (also called a strophe or stave) is determined by the number of lines, the dominant metre, and the rhyme scheme.
Different Types of Stanza:
Monostich: A one-line stanza. Monostich can also be an entire poem.
Couplet: A stanza with two lines that rhyme.
Tercet or Triplet is a stanza with three lines that either all rhyme AAA, BBB, CCC 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.”
Terza Rima was invented early in the fourteenth century by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri for his narrative poem the Divine Comedy. Terza rima is a verse form composed of iambic tercets (three-line groupings). The rhyme scheme for this form of poetry is "aba bcb cdc ded efe etc."
Villanelles: Poems with 19 lines consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain. They have a rhyme scheme of ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA.
Quatrain: The word is derived from the French quatre, meaning “four.” A stanza with four lines with the second and fourth lines rhyming.
Ballad Stanza: a stanza consisting of four lines with the first and third lines unrhymed iambic tetrameters and the second and fourth lines rhymed iambic trimeters
Quintain: Also known as cinquain or quintet, is a stanza with five lines.
Limerick: is a humorous piece of poetry that consists of five lines with the same rhythm.
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.
Ottava Rima: Italian stanza form composed of eight 11-syllable lines, rhyming abababcc.
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.
