ottava rima

ottava rima
/oh tah"veuh ree"meuh/, pl. ottava rimas.
an Italian stanza of eight lines, each of eleven syllables (or, in the English adaptation, of ten or eleven syllables), the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet with a different rhyme: used in Keats' Isabella and Byron's Don Juan.
[1810-20; < It: octave rhyme]

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Italian stanza form composed of eight 11-syllable lines, rhyming abababcc.

It originated in the late 13th and early 14th centuries and was established by Giovanni Boccaccio as the standard form for Italian epic and narrative verse. When the form appeared in English, the lines were shortened to 10 syllables. In the 17th–18th century, English ottava rima was written in iambic pentameter and used for heroic poetry. Notably effective in Lord Byron's Beppo (1818) and Don Juan (1819–24), it was also used by Edmund Spenser, John Milton, John Keats, Percy B. Shelley, Robert Browning, and William Butler Yeats.

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▪ poetic form
      Italian stanza form composed of eight 11-syllable lines, rhyming abababcc. It originated in the late 13th and early 14th centuries and was developed by Tuscan poets for religious verse and drama and in troubadour songs. The form appeared in Spain and Portugal in the 16th century. It was used in 1600 in England (where the lines were shortened to 10 syllables) by Edward Fairfax in his translation of Torquato Tasso. In his romantic epics Il filostrato (written c. 1338) and Teseida (written 1340–41) Boccaccio (Boccaccio, Giovanni) established ottava rima as the standard form for epic and narrative verse in Italy. The form acquired new flexibility and variety in Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando furioso (c. 1507–32) and Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata (published 1581). In English verse ottava rima was used for heroic poetry in the 17th and 18th centuries but achieved its greatest effectiveness in the work of Byron. His Beppo (1818) and Don Juan (1819–24) combined elements of comedy, seriousness, and mock-heroic irony. Shelley employed it for a serious subject in The Witch of Atlas (1824).

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • ottava rima —    Ottava rima is a verse form originating in late medieval Italy, consisting of stanzas of eight hendesyllabic (or 11 syllable) lines rhyming abababcc. The form was popularized by BOCCACCIO, who first used it in his Il FILOSTRATO (ca. 1339) and… …   Encyclopedia of medieval literature

  • Ottava Rima —   [italienisch] die, , Ottava, Oktave, eine seit dem Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts in erzählender Dichtung belegte italienische Strophenform aus acht elfsilbigen jambischen Versen mit weiblichem Ausgang, von denen die ersten sechs abwechselnd, die… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • ottava rima — 1820, from It., eight lined stanza, lit. eighth rhyme, from ottava eighth (see OCTAVE (Cf. octave)). A stanza of eight 11 syllable lines, rhymed a b a b a b c c, but in the Byronic variety, they are English heroic lines of 10 syllables …   Etymology dictionary

  • Ottava rima — 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 …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • ottava rima — ● ottava rima nom féminin (mots italiens signifiant huitième rime) Strophe de huit vers, portée à sa perfection par l Arioste et le Tasse (suivant la forme a b a b a b c c), également utilisée par Camões …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • ottava rima — [ō tä΄və rē′mə; ō̂ tä΄vä rē′mä] [It: see OCTAVE & RHYME] a stanza of eight lines with the rhyme scheme abababcc: the Italian form has eleven syllables in a line, the English, usually ten iambic pentameter syllables …   English World dictionary

  • Ottava rima — For etymology and similar terms see Octave. Ottava rima is a rhyming stanza form of Italian origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it later came to be popular in the writing of mock heroic works. Its earliest known use is in the …   Wikipedia

  • Ottava rima — Die Stanze (Ottava rima) ist eine aus Italien stammende Gedichtform, die aus acht elfsilbigen Verszeilen mit dem Reimschema abababcc besteht. Im Deutschen weist die Stanze meist abwechselnd weibliche und männliche Kadenzen, fünfhebige Verse mit… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • ottava rima — noun (plural ottava rimas) Etymology: Italian, literally, eighth rhyme Date: 1820 a stanza of eight lines of heroic verse with a rhyme scheme of abababcc …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • ottava rima — otta′va ri′ma [[t]ˈri mə[/t]] n. pl. ottava ri•mas pro an Italian stanza of eight lines, each of eleven syllables, the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet with a different rhyme • Etymology: 1810–20; < It:… …   From formal English to slang

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