ottava rima









ottava rima


noun, plural ot·ta·va ri·mas.

  1. an Italian stanza of eight lines, each of eleven syllables (or, in the English adaptation, of ten or eleven syllables), the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet with a different rhyme: used in Keats’ Isabella and Byron’s Don Juan.

noun

  1. prosody a stanza form consisting of eight iambic pentameter lines, rhyming a b a b a b c c

1820, Italian, “eight-lined stanza,” literally “eighth rhyme,” from ottava “eighth” (see octave). A stanza of eight 11-syllable lines, rhymed a b a b a b c c, but in the Byronic variety, they are English heroic lines of 10 syllables.

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