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quatrain

  (kwŏt'rān', kwŏ-trān') pronunciation
n.

A stanza or poem of four lines.

[French, from Old French, from quatre, four, from Latin quattuor.]


 
 

quatrain, a verse stanza of four lines, rhymed or (less often) unrhymed. The quatrain is the most commonly used stanza in English and most modern European languages. Most ballads and many hymns are composed in quatrains in which the second and fourth lines rhyme (abcb or abab); the ‘heroic quatrain’ of iambic pentameters also rhymes abab. A different rhyme scheme (abba) is used in the In Memoriam stanza and some other forms. The rhyming four‐line groups that make up the first eight or twelve lines of a sonnet are also known as quatrains.

 
Poetry Glossary: Quatrain

A poem, unit or stanza of four lines of verse, usually with a rhyme scheme of abab or its variant, xbyb. It is the most common stanzaic form.

 
Wikipedia: quatrain

A quatrain is a poem, or a stanza within a poem, that consists always of four lines. It is the most common of all stanza forms in European poetry. The rhyming patterns include aabb, abab, abba, abcb.

In its narrow meaning, the term is restricted to a complete poem consisting of only four lines. In its broader sense, it includes any one of many four-verse stanza forms.

Basic forms

  • abab (from "The Unquiet Grave")
"The wind doth blow today, my love
And a few small drops of rain;
I never had but one true-love
In cold grave she was lain.
  • abcb (from "The Wife of Usher's Well")
There lived a wife at Usher's Well,
And a wealthy wife was she;
She had three stout and stalwart sons,
And sent them over the sea.
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
  • abba, also called the envelope stanza or introverted quatrain (from Tennyson In Memoriam)
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believeing where we cannot prove;
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night,
Has flung the Stone that puts the stars to flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of light.

Other forms

The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
  • The Shichigon-zekku form used in Chinese and Japanese poetry. Both rhyme and rhythm are key elements, although the former is not restricted to falling at the end of the phrase.
  • Ballad meter (The examples from "The Unquiet Grave" and "The Wife of Usher's Well" are both examples of ballad meter.)
  • Various hymns employ specific forms, such as the common meter, long meter, and short meter.

See also

External links


 
Translations: Translations for: Quatrain

Dansk (Danish)
n. - firelinjet strofe

Nederlands (Dutch)
kwatrijn

Français (French)
n. - quatrain

Deutsch (German)
n. - Vierzeiler

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (προσωδ.) τετράστιχο

Italiano (Italian)
quartina

Português (Portuguese)
n. - quarteto (m), estrofe de quatro versos (f)

Русский (Russian)
четверостишие

Español (Spanish)
n. - cuarteto, estrofa de cuatro versos

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - fyrradig strof, kvadernar

中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
四行诗

中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 四行詩

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 4행시

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 四行詩, 四行連句

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الرباعيه, مقطوعه شعريه رباعيه الابيات‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מרובע - שיר בן ארבע שורות, בד"כ עם חרוזים שמפרידה ביניהם שורה‬


 
 

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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Poetry Glossary. Copyright © 2007, ILOVEPOETRY, Inc, All Rights Reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Quatrain" Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

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