rhyme royal

rhyme royal
   Rhyme royal, or the “Chaucerian stanza,” is a verse form invented by Geoffrey CHAUCER consisting of seven decasyllabic (10-syllable) lines rhyming ababbcc. Chaucer found the stanza valuable and flexible for use in narrative poetry.
   He first used it in The PARLIAMENT OF FOWLS, and used it again in TROILUS AND CRISEYDE and some of the CANTERBURY TALES, particularly the more serious ones like The CLERK’S TALE and The PRIORESS’S TALE. Other late medieval poets, including LYDGATE, DUNBAR, and HENNRYSON, later used the stanza and it was given the name “rhyme royal” because it was used in The KINGIS QUAIR, a poem attributed to King JAMES I of Scotland. The stanza also remained popular in the Renaissance, and was employed by Skelton, and Spenser, and by Shakespeare as well in his narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece. Chaucer adapted the rhyme royal form from BOCCACCIO’s OTTAVA RIMA stanza—an eight-line stanza rhyming abababcc. Boccaccio’s stanza consists of six lines of description or narration and a concluding couplet that might comment on or sum up the stanza. Chaucer eliminated Boccaccio’s fifth line, creating a stanza form that invited more flexibility by creating a turning point in the fourth line, the middle of the stanza: The b rhyme in line four completes the abab quatrain that starts the stanza, and also begins the bbcc pair of couplets that ends the stanza. The following famous stanza from Troilus illustrates the rhyme royal form:
   Ye knowe ek that in forme of speche is chaunge
   Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
   That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and straunge
   Us thinketh hem, and yet thei spake hem so,
   And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
   Ek for to wynnen love in sundry ages,
   In sundry londes, sundry ben usages.
   (Benson 1987, 489, ll. 22–28)
   Here, the first four lines describe how strange to us is the speech of those that lived in bygone times. But a shift occurs in line four, and the final four lines describe how much those people were like us after all, particularly in matters of love.
   Bibliography
   ■ Benson, Larry, et al., eds. The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987.

Encyclopedia of medieval literature. 2013.

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  • Rhyme royal — (or Rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. Contents 1 Form 2 History 3 Some examples 4 …   Wikipedia

  • Rhyme royal — Rhyme Rhyme, n. [OE. ryme, rime, AS. r[=i]m number; akin to OHG. r[=i]m number, succession, series, G. reim rhyme. The modern sense is due to the influence of F. rime, which is of German origin, and originally the same word.] [The Old English… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • rhyme royal — n. a stanza of seven lines in iambic pentameter rhyming ababbcc, first used in English by Chaucer …   English World dictionary

  • rhyme royal — Pros. a form of verse introduced into English by Chaucer, consisting of seven line stanzas of iambic pentameter in which there are three rhymes, the first line rhyming with the third, the second with the fourth and fifth, and the sixth with the… …   Universalium

  • rhyme royal — noun a stanza form having seven lines of iambic pentameter; introduced by Chaucer • Hypernyms: ↑stanza * * * noun (plural rhyme royals) : a stanza of seven lines in iambic pentameter in which the first and third, the second, fourth …   Useful english dictionary

  • Rhyme royal — Der rhyme royal ( königlicher Reim ) ist eine Strophenform der englischen Dichtung. Er besteht aus sieben Versen (üblicherweise jambischen Pentametern) mit dem Reimschema ababbcc. So kann die Strophe entweder in eine Terzine und zwei Paarreime… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • rhyme royal — rhyme′ roy′al n. pro a verse form consisting of seven line stanzas in iambic pentameter, rhyming ababbcc[/ex] …   From formal English to slang

  • rhyme royal — noun Date: circa 1841 a stanza of seven lines in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ababbcc …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • rhyme royal — /raɪm ˈrɔɪəl/ (say ruym royuhl) noun a form of verse introduced into English by Chaucer, consisting of seven line stanzas of iambic pentameter in which there are three rhymes, the first line rhyming with the third, the second with the fourth and… …  

  • Rhyme — Rhyme, n. [OE. ryme, rime, AS. r[=i]m number; akin to OHG. r[=i]m number, succession, series, G. reim rhyme. The modern sense is due to the influence of F. rime, which is of German origin, and originally the same word.] [The Old English spelling… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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