sestina
- a poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end.
Origin of sestina
Related Words for sestina
rhyme, poetry, writing, verse, lyric, epic, composition, ballad, sonnet, song, beat, creation, poesy, rime, words, ode, limerick, lines, rune, haikuExamples from the Web for sestina
Historical Examples of sestina
The sestina is composed of six 6-line stanzas and a final 3-line stanza.
The Principles of English VersificationPaull Franklin Baum
Naught else have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina.
ChivalryJames Branch Cabell
From Italy have come, besides the ottava rima and the sonnet, two other metrical forms, the sestina and the terza rima.
The Principles of English VersificationPaull Franklin Baum
The common form of the sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, with a tercet at the end.
English VerseRaymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D.
That it was used and admired by Dante and Petrarch, alone gives the sestina a royal precedence over all of the other forms.
sestina
- an elaborate verse form of Italian origin, normally unrhymed, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each and a concluding tercet. The six final words of the lines in the first stanza are repeated in a different order in each of the remaining five stanzas and also in the concluding tercetAlso called: sextain
Word Origin for sestina
Word Origin and History for sestina
1797, from Italian, "poem of six-lined stanzas," from sesto "sixth," from Latin sextus (see six). Invented by 12c. Provençal troubadour Arnaut Daniel. The line endings of the first stanza are repeated in different order in the rest, and in an envoi.