Form
The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. In practice, the stanza can be constructed either as a tercet and two couplets (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or a quatrain and a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c). This allows for a good deal of variety, especially when the form is used for longer narrative poems; and along with the couplet, it was the standard narrative metre in the late Middle Ages.
Read more about this topic: Rhyme Royal
Famous quotes containing the word form:
“Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And secrecy the Human Dress.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)