Skip to main content
Poetry & prosody

Eight-line stanza

An eight-line stanza whose rhyme pattern depends on the poetic form being used.

An eight-line stanza has eight verse lines, with its meter and rhyme determined by the chosen form. The line count alone does not establish a particular pattern.

The term octave is also used for an eight-line unit, especially the opening section of an Italian sonnet. Shared length does not make every eight-line form equivalent.

Example

An eight-line stanza rhyming ABABBCBC uses three rhyme sounds.

In the workshop

Specify the rhyme pattern when working within a prescribed form.

Write with Extypis

The writing studio novelists were missing

Outline, characters, places and objects, the links between them, mind map, storyboard, export: everything lives in one place. Plus an AI that knows your story, whenever you want one.

Discover Extypis

Free to write and to export. No credit card asked.