stanza

A stanza is a grouped set of lines within a poem that functions as a unit. A stanza is usually set off from other lines by a blank line or indentation, and its lines often share a pattern of meter and/or rhyme. The term emphasizes the organization of verse into modular blocks, similar to paragraphs in prose, though the number of lines per stanza and the rules governing rhyme can vary widely by tradition and poem.

Etymology and scope: The word comes from the Italian stanza, meaning a room or stopping place, used in poetry to denote a division of verse. The concept appears in many literatures, sometimes under different names, and its precise form can differ across languages and historical periods.

Structure and variation: Stanzas are defined by line breaks and the relationships among lines, not by a fixed length. They can be two-line (couplet), three-line (tercet), four-line (quatrain), or longer. Some stanzas have formal requirements for meter and rhyme; others occur in free verse with irregular lengths.

Common forms: In traditional verse, notable stanzaic forms include the couplet, tercet, quatrain, sestet, and octave. Fixed forms include the ballad stanza (a four-line unit with a regular meter and rhyme), terza rima (interlocking tercets with chain rhyme), and ottava rima (an eight-line stanza with a specific rhyme scheme). The sestina is a six-line stanza class that uses a complex repeating end-word pattern across stanzas.

Modern usage: In contemporary poetry, stanzas may be of uneven length or absent altogether, particularly in free verse, but the concept remains a useful way to discuss structure, pacing, and rhyme in a poem.