canto

Canto is a division or section of a long poem or song. In literary usage, a canto is a major subdivision of a narrative poem or epic, usually organizing the work into self-contained units. The term comes from Italian canto meaning “a song” or “a singing”; it derives from Latin cantus, meaning “song” or “melody.” In English, cantos are typically pluralized as cantos, though the Italian plural canti is sometimes used in discussions of specific works.

The most famous example is Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which the poem is divided into 100 cantos: 34 in Inferno, 33 in Purgatorio, and 33 in Paradiso. The canto form provides a way to structure long verse and to spotlight recurring motifs or climactic moments within each unit. Other poets have used cantos as well, and the title of Ezra Pound’s The Cantos highlights this tradition.

In music, canto has a related sense rooted in its Latin origin: it can refer to a song or the melodic line of a piece, and historically it has been used to describe singing parts or cantus. The term also appears in discussions of polyphony, early music, and liturgical or secular songs.

See also: Cantus.