The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...

 for his epic poem

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...

. Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama. The term describes the particular rhythm that the words establish in that line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called "feet"...

 followed by a single 'Alexandrine

Alexandrine

An alexandrine is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted...

' line in iambic hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

. The rhyme scheme

Rhyme scheme

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines...

 of these lines is "ababbcbcc."

Example Stanza

This example is the first stanza from Spenser's Faerie Queene. The formatting, wherein all lines but the first and last are indented, is the same as in printed editions of the Faerie Queene.

Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske,

   As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds,

   Am now enforst a far unfitter taske,

   For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds,

   And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds;

   Whose prayses hauing slept in silence long,

   Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds

   To blazon broad emongst her learned throng:

Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song.

Possible Influences

Spenser's invention may have been influenced by the Italian form ottava rima

Ottava rima

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 writings of Giovanni Boccaccio....

, which consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme "abababcc." This form was used by Spenser's Italian role models Ludovico Ariosto

Ludovico Ariosto

Ludovico Ariosto was an Italian poet. He is best known as the author of the romance epic Orlando Furioso . The poem, a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, describes the adventures of Charlemagne, Orlando, and the Franks as they battle against the Saracens with diversions...

 and Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem...

.

Another possible influence is rhyme royal

Rhyme royal

Rhyme royal is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer.-Form:The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. In practice, the stanza can be constructed either as a terza rima and two couplets...

, a traditional mediæval form used by Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

 and others, which has seven lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme "ababbcc." More likely, however, is the eight-line ballad stanza with the rhyme scheme "ababbcbc," which Chaucer used in his Monk's Tale. Spenser would have been familiar with this rhyme scheme and simply added a line to the stanza, forming "ababbcbcc."

Use by Others

Spenser's verse form fell into disuse in the period immediately following his death. However, it was revived in the 1800s by several notable poets, including:

• Lord Byron in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. It was published between 1812 and 1818 and is dedicated to "Ianthe". The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks...
  
  
• John Keats
  John Keats
  John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
  
   in The Eve of St. Agnes
  The Eve of St. Agnes
  "The Eve of St. Agnes" is a long poem by John Keats, written in 1819 and published in 1820. It is widely considered to be amongst his finest poems and was influential in 19th century literature. The poem is in Spenserian stanzas....
  
  
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Percy Bysshe Shelley
  Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
  
   in The Revolt of Islam
  The Revolt of Islam
  The Revolt of Islam is a poem in twelve cantos composed by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1817. The poem was originally published under the title Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of the Nineteenth Century by Charles and James Ollier in December, 1817...
  
  and Adonais
  Adonais
  Adonaïs: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. , also spelled Adonaies, is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and most well-known works...
  
  
• Sir Walter Scott in The Vision of Don Roderick
  The Vision of Don Roderick
  The Vision of Don Roderick is a poem by Sir Walter Scott, published in 1811. It celebrated the recent victories of the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War, and proceeds of its sale were to raise funds for Portugal...
  
  .
• Robert Burns
  Robert Burns
  Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
  
   in "The Cotter's Saturday Night," which shows his ability to use English forms while praising Scotland.
• William Wordsworth
  William Wordsworth
  William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
  
   in "The Female Vagrant", included in Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads
  Lyrical Ballads
  Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature...
  
  
• Alfred Tennyson in The Lotos-eaters and Choric Song, in the first part of the poem.