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 TESEIDA( ca. 1341).

   The form was in existence prior to Boccaccio, however: It may have developed from stanza forms used in certain CANZONI or SIRVENTES; or it may have come from an earlier Italian genre called the strambotto, which was a single stanza of six or eight lines used generally for sentimental love poems. The strambotto took a variety of forms, but one form popular in Tuscany did use the abababcc rhyme scheme. It has also been conjectured that MINSTRELS were using this particular strambotto verse form for composing long narrative poems by the early 14th century.Whether or not that is true, it is certain that ottava rima appears in religious poems from the late 13th century.

   Although Boccaccio did not invent the form, he refined it and popularized it for use in long narrative texts. Part of Boccaccio’s immense influence on CHAUCER included his use of the narrative verse stanza: Chaucer developed his RHYME ROYAL stanza after reading Boccaccio’s narratives and deciding to drop the final a rhyme from the form, creating a seven-line stanza rhyming ababbcc. Subsequent Italian writers, however, made greater use of Boccaccio’s ottava rima itself, notably Ariosto and Tasso in the Renaissance. Thomas Wyatt is credited for introducing ottava rima into English in the 16th century (using iambic pentameter rather than hendesyllabic lines), and it was later used by Spenser, Milton, and most effectively by Lord Byron in his mock epic Don Juan.