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.

  • 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.