The Dwarf Prudence,
Common Sense

Sir Trevisan Fear

The Squire Purity The Anglican Clergy

The Horn Truth The English Bible

Lucifera Pride, Vanity Woman of Babylon Church of Rome


4. THE SPENSERIAN STANZA.--The _Faerie Queene_ is written in the Spenserian
Stanza, a form which the poet himself invented as a suitable vehicle for a
long narrative poem. Suggestions for its construction were taken from three
Italian metres--the Ottava Rima, the Terza Rima, the Sonnet--and the
Ballade stanza. There are eight lines in the iambic pentameter measure
(five accents); e.g.--

v -/- | v -/- | v -/- | v -/- | v -/-
a gen | tle knight | was prick | ing on | the plaine
followed by one iambic hexameter, or Alexandrine (six accents); e.g.--

v -/- | v -/- | v -/- | v -/- | v -/- | v -/-
as one | for knight | ly giusts | and fierce | encount | ers fitt
The rhymes are arranged in the following order: _ab ab bc bcc_. It will be
observed that the two quatrains are bound together by the first two b
rhymes, and the Alexandrine, which rhymes with the eighth line, draws out
the harmony with a peculiar lingering effect. In scanning and reading it is
necessary to observe the laws of accentuation and pronunciation prevailing