An italian rhyme scheme used by a few poets in the Renaissance. The rhyme scheme consists of 8 lines, the first six lines rhyme

a, b, a, b, a, b,

and the last two lines rhyme a, a

Rather like a little sonnet. One of the few poets to use this rhyme scheme during the Renaissance that I know if is Aemilia Lanyer who wrote her Salve Deus Rex Judeorum using this rhyme scheme for 1800-some-odd lines. Not exactly a weekend project!

A better known poet who used this scheme long after the Renaissance would be Lord Byron

Ot*ta"va ri"ma (?). [It. See Octave, and Rhyme.] (Pros.)

A stanza of eight lines of heroic verse, with three rhymes, the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet. It was used by Byron in "Don Juan," by Keats in "Isabella," by Shelley in "The Witch of Atlas," etc.

 

© Webster 1913.

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