A stanza simply refers to the major division in a poetry piece. In other words, it is series of lines which are grouped together to divide poems(lines). Throughout the writing of the poem, the structure of the stanza is distributed across.
Stanzas are separated from each other with the use of line breaks in between them. Each stanza stands alone and can even make up a complete poem or unite with other stanzas to make up a poem.
Read Also: Sonnets: Understanding The Various Types, Variations & Schemes
Purpose Of Stanzas In Poetry
Stanzas works in poems like ‘rooms’ just like they mean in the Italian language. The poem is the house and stanzas serve as rooms inside the house. The nature or structure of a stanza says a lot about the poem.
Organization: Every line in a stanza carries a message. Some lines are connected to another line to make a complete meaning and others are simply independent. In most cases, the 1st stanza is used to introduce the poem.
Shape: Spaces around and between or pattern helps one to easily define the shape of the poem.
Structure: Every poet is backed with a particular frame of mind when working on a poem. The stanza here, can refer to as the architecture of the poem.
Mood: Sometimes, a break that is between the written stanzas could signal change in mood or emotional tone.
Beauty: Stanzas helps to add more beauty and elegance to the entire poetry piece.
Read Also: Understand Prose: Kinds, Elements, Characters, Figures of Speeches
Types Of Stanzas
Stanzas come in so many different sizes, lengths and shapes. There are different types of stanzas when writing poems. These types are identified by number of lines, rhyme schemes and meters.
1. Monostrich: It is a one-line stanza that can make up an entire poem on its own.
2. Couplet: A couplet is a stanza with just two lines that rhyme. They could appear in one poem concurringly.
Examples
- Alexander Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard.”
“Yet, yet I love!—From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.”
- William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 52.”
“Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.”
3. Tercet: A tercet is a stanza with just three lines that either all of them rhyme or the 1st and 3rd line rhyme. It has a rhyme scheme of AAA or ABA. Also, you should know that, a poem that is made up of tercet and ends with a couplet is called a ‘terza rima‘.
Example
A Minute By Patricia A. Gordon
Everyone, young or old,
Needs someone to listen
As their stories are told.
The difference is yours to make.
A minute from your busy day
Is all it would take.
Take a minute and lend an ear.
Listen intently
To what you hear.
Take a minute and you will see
Just how powerful
Listening can be.
Take a minute to offer a smile and a touch.
Your sincerity
Means so much.
Take a minute and simply be kind.
A friend for life
May be what you find.
4. Quatrain: A Quatrain is a stanza with 4 lines. Here, the 2nd and 4th line rhymes.
Example
The Butterfly By Andres Diaz
With a symphony of colors
Spread on her wings,
She strolls in the garden
With a light footprint.
She smile to the flowers,
She flew by the pond,
And freshen her breath
By kissing the rose.
5. Quintain: A Quintain is a stanza with 5 lines.
Example
“Ode to a Skylark” By Percy Bysshe Shelley
“In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.”
6. Sestet is a stanza with 6 lines.
Examples
“When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be,” By John Keats
“And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love — then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.”
7. Septet: Septet stanzas have 7 lines in while or each. The Septet Stanzas are also called ‘rhyme royal’.
Example
“Annabel Lee,” By Edgar Allan Poe
“But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older that we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;”
8. Octave: An octave refers to a stanza with 8 lines which are written in ten syllables/iambic pentameter. In this type of stanza, the more lines added to the piece, the more meter patterns and rhymes.
9. Isometric Stanza: An isometric stanza have equal syllabic beat and meter in every single line.
10. Heterometric Stanza: This refers to a stanza whereby every line in the stanza carries different lengths.
11. Ballad Stanza: This kind of stanza is mostly used in folk songs. A Ballad Stanza is simply a rhyming quatrian which has four specific beats(i.e. eight syllables) in the 1st and 3rd lines and also, three specific beats(i.e. six syllables) in the second and fourth lines.
12. Spenserian Stanza: This type of stanza was named after Edward Spenser’s special way of structuring stanzas in his poetry pieces. Example of such is his poem ‘The Faerie Queene‘. Spenserian Stanza has 9 lines of which eight are written in iambic pentameter, 10 syllables in a line with emphasis on the 2nd beat of each syllable—and a final line in iambic hexameter—a twelve-syllable beat line.
Poet Nazir is a writer and an editor here on ThePoetsHub. Outside this space, he works as a poet, screenwriter, author, relationship adviser and a reader. He is also the founder & lead director of PNSP Studios, a film production firm.
