Spenserian stanza facts for kids
The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queene. Each stanza contains nine lines in total. The first eight lines are in iambic pentameter, that is consist of ten syllables, followed by a single alexandrine line in iambic hexameter, that is are made up of twelve syllables. The rhyme scheme of these lines is "a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c."
Many poets used the stanza after Spenser, for example Lord Byron (Chlide Harold's Pilgrimage), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Adonais), John Keats (The Eve of St. Agnes) and Alfred Tennyson (The Lotos-Eaters). Spenserian stanza remained a typical English form and it was never much popular outside England. Only few poets employed it in Central Europe, for example Juliusz Słowacki, Jan Kasprowicz and Jaroslav Vrchlický.
See also
In Spanish: Estancia spenseriana para niños
