Quatrain

{{short description|Four-line poem or stanza}} {{more citations needed|date=February 2016}} A '''quatrain''' is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.<ref name="literarydevices_net">{{cite web |title=Definition and Examples of Literary Terms |url=https://literarydevices.net/quatrain/ |website=Literary Devices |access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref>

Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China, and continues into the 21st century,<ref name="literarydevices_net" /> where it is seen in works published in many languages.

This form of poetry has been continually popular in Iran since the medieval period, as Ruba'is form; an important faction of the vast repertoire of Persian poetry, with famous poets such as Omar Khayyam and Mahsati Ganjavi of Seljuk Persia writing poetry only in this format.

Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) used the quatrain form to deliver his famous "prophecies" in the 16th century.

There are fifteen possible rhyme schemes, but the most traditional and common are ABAA, AAAA, ABAB, and ABBA.

==Forms== [[File:Henric Piccardt (Landry).jpg|thumb|Portrait of Henric Piccardt. Engraving by Pierre Landry from 1672 after a lost painting by Nicolaes Maes.<br>Under the portrait, a quatrain by Guy Patin.]]

*The '''heroic stanza''' or '''elegiac stanza''' consists of the iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABAB}</math>. An example can be found in the following of Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard". <poem style="margin-left:3em"> The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. </poem> *The '''hymnal stanza''' consists of alternating rhymes with the iambic trimeter and the iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABCB}</math>. An example can be found in Robert Burns, "A Red, Red Rose".<ref>{{cite web |title=A Red, Red Rose |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43812/a-red-red-rose |website=Poetry foundation |access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> <poem style="margin-left:3em"> O, my luve’s like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June; O, my luve’s like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune. </poem> *The '''memoriam stanza''' consists of the iambic tetrameter and a rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABBA}</math>. An example can be found in Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H.".<ref>{{cite web |title=Prosody, In Memoriam Stanza |url=https://www.britannica.com/art/In-Memoriam-stanza |website=Britannica |publisher=The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> <poem style="margin-left:3em"> So word by word, and line by line, The dead man touch’d me from the past, And all at once it seem’d at last The living soul was flash’d on mine. </poem> *An '''envelope stanza''' is a stanza that starts and ends a poem with little change of wording, although this term is also used on stanzas that have a symmetrical rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABBA}</math>. An example can be found in William Blake's "The Tyger". (These are the first and last stanzas of the poem) <ref>{{cite web |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095753464 |website=Oxford Reference |access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> <poem style="margin-left:3em"> Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? ... Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry </poem> *The '''ballad stanza''' consists of the iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of <math>\mathrm{ABCB}</math> (see '''ballad stanza''' for more details).<ref>{{cite web |title=Ballad |url=https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/ballad |website=Litcharts |publisher=From the creators of SparkNotes, something better |access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> An example can be found in “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats.<ref>{{cite web |title=Definition of Ballad |url=http://www.literarydevices.com/ballad/ |website=Literary Devices |publisher=Literary Devices, Terms, and Elements |access-date=2 December 2020}}</ref> <poem style="margin-left:3em"> I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Thee hath in thrall!’ </poem> *The Ruba'i form of rhymed quatrain was favored by Persian-language poet Omar Khayyám, among others. This work was a major inspiration for Edward FitzGerald's ''Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam''. The ''ruba'i'' was a particularly widespread verse form: the form ''rubaiyat'' reflects the plural. One of FitzGerald's verses<ref>Verse VII, see ''Rubaiyat'' version at Wikisource</ref> may serve to illustrate: <poem style="margin-left:3em"> Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing. </poem>

==Notes== {{Reflist}}

==References== * [http://www.uni.edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoetry/quatrain.html Quatrain] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140305103010/http://www.uni.edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoetry/quatrain.html |date=2014-03-05 }}

Category:Stanzaic form