Possible Influences
Spenser's invention may have been influenced by the Italian form ottava rima, which consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme "abababcc." This form was used by Spenser's Italian role models Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso.
Another possible influence is rhyme royal, a traditional mediæval form used by Geoffrey Chaucer and others, which has seven lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme "ababbcc." More likely, however, is the eight-line ballad stanza with the rhyme scheme "ababbcbc," which Chaucer used in his Monk's Tale. Spenser would have been familiar with this rhyme scheme and simply added a line to the stanza, forming "ababbcbcc."
Read more about this topic: Spenserian Stanza
Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“Whoever influences the child’s life ought to try to give him a positive view of himself and of his world. The child’s future happiness and his ability to cope with life and relate to others will depend on it.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Without looking, then, to those extraordinary social influences which are now acting in precisely this direction, but only at what is inevitably doing around us, I think we must regard the land as a commanding and increasing power on the citizen, the sanative and Americanizing influence, which promises to disclose new virtues for ages to come.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)