Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

terza rima

 
Dictionary: ter·za ri·ma   (tĕr'tsə rē') pronunciation
n., pl., ter·ze ri·me (tĕr'tsĕ rē').
A verse form of Italian origin consisting of tercets of 10 or 11 syllables with the middle line rhyming with the first and third lines of the following tercet.

[Italian : terza, feminine of terzo, third + rima, rhyme.]


Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Verse form consisting of tercets, or three-line stanzas, in which the second line of each rhymes with the first and third lines of the next. The series ends with a separate line that rhymes with the second line of the last stanza, so that the rhyme scheme is aba, bcb, cdc, …, yzy, z. Dante, in The Divine Comedy (c. 1310 – 14), was the first to use terza rima in a long poem. A demanding form, it has not been widely adopted in languages less rich in rhymes than Italian. It was introduced into England by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the 16th century. Poets who have experimented with terza rima include Percy B. Shelley, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and W.H. Auden; Derek Walcott's book-length Omeros is written in modified terza rima.

For more information on terza rima, visit Britannica.com.

Literary Dictionary: terza rima
Top

terza rima [ter‐tsă ree‐mă]a verse form consisting of a sequence of interlinked tercets rhyming aba bcb cdc ded etc. Thus the second line of each tercet provides the rhyme for the first and third lines of the next; the sequence closes with one line (or in a few cases, two lines) rhyming with the middle line of the last tercet: yzy z (z). The form was invented by Dante Alighieri for his Divina Commedia (c.1320), using the Italian hendecasyllabic line. It has been adopted by several poets in English pentameters, notably by P. B. Shelley in his ‘Ode to the West Wind’ (1820).

Poetry Glossary: Terza Rima
Top

A verse form consisting of tercets, usually in iambic pentameter in English poetry, with a chain or interlocking rhyme scheme, as: aba, bcb, cdc, etc. The pattern concludes with a separate line added at the end of the poem (or each part) rhyming with the second line of the preceding tercet or with a rhyming couplet.

Wikipedia: Terza rima
Top

Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Contents

Form

Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D. There is no limit to the number of lines, but poems or sections of poems written in terza rima end with either a single line or couplet repeating the rhyme of the middle line of the final tercet. The two possible endings for the example above are d-e-d, e or d-e-d, e-e. There is no set rhythm for terza rima, but in English, iambic pentameter is generally preferred.

History

The first known use of terza rima is in Dante's Divina Commedia. In creating the form, Dante may have been influenced by the sirventes, a lyric form used by the Provencal troubadours. The three-line pattern may have been intended to suggest the Holy Trinity. Inspired by Dante, other Italian poets, including Petrarch and Boccaccio, began using the form.

The first English poet to write in terza rima was Geoffrey Chaucer, who used it for his Complaint to His Lady. Although a difficult form to use in English because of the relative paucity of rhyme words available in what has, in comparison with Italian, a more complex phonology, terza rima has been used by Milton, Byron (in his Prophecy of Dante) and Shelley (in his Ode to the West Wind and The Triumph of Life). A number of 20th century poets also employed the form. These include Archibald MacLeish, W. H. Auden, Andrew Cannon, William Carlos Williams, T. S. Eliot, Derek Walcott, Clark Ashton Smith, and James Merrill. Thomas Hardy also used the form of meter in 'Friends Beyond' to interlink the characters and continue the flow of the poem. It is well known that Hardy admired Shelley's work and Shelley was also a keen user of terza rima.

Not surprisingly, the form has also been used in translations of the Divina Commedia. Perhaps the most notable examples are Robert Pinsky's version of the Inferno, Laurence Binyon's version of the entire Divina Commedia, and Dorothy L. Sayers's almost-completed version.

Some Examples

Acquainted With the Night by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night. (a)
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. (b)
I have outwalked the furthest city light. (a)
I have looked down the saddest city lane. (b)
I have passed by the watchman on his beat (c)
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. (b)
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet (c)
When far away an interrupted cry (d)
Came over houses from another street, (c)
But not to call me back or say good-by; (d)
And further still at an unearthly height (a)
One luminary clock against the sky (d)
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. (a)
I have been one acquainted with the night. (a)

The opening lines of the Divina Commedia:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita (a)
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura (b)
ché la diritta via era smarrita. (a)
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura (b)
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte (c)
che nel pensier rinova la paura! (b)
Tant'è amara che poco è più morte; (c)
ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai, (d)
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte. (c)
Io non so ben ridir com'i' v'intrai, (d)
tant'era pien di sonno a quel punto (e)
che la verace via abbandonai. (d)

Two tercets from Chaucer's Complaint to his Lady:

Hir name is Bountee set in womanhede
Sadness in youthe and Beautee prydelees
And Plesaunce under governaunce and drede;
Hir surname is eek Faire Rewthelees
The Wyse, yknit unto Good Aventure,
That, for I love hir, she sleeth me giltelees.

A section from Shelley's Ode to the West Wind with a couplet ending:

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintery bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

The first three stanzas of Thomas Hardy's 'Friends Beyond':

William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
Robert’s kin, and John’s, and Ned’s,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!
“Gone,” I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and heads;
Yet at mothy curfew-tide,
And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and leads,
They’ve a way of whispering to me—fellow-wight who yet abide—
In the muted, measured note
Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave’s stillicide:

External links


 
 
Learn More
tercet
Stanza (literary term)
Terzinen

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 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 Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Terza rima" Read more