Quatrain

A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.

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, 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

• The heroic stanza or elegiac stanza consists of the iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme of .

An example can be found in the following of Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".

• The hymnal stanza consists of alternating rhymes with the iambic trimeter and the iambic tetrameter, with a rhyme scheme of .

An example can be found in Robert Burns, "A Red, Red Rose".

• The memoriam stanza consists of the iambic tetrameter and a rhyme scheme of .

An example can be found in Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam A.H.H.".

• 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 .

An example can be found in William Blake's "The Tyger". (These are the first and last stanzas of the poem)

• The ballad stanza consists of the iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of (see ballad stanza for more details).

An example can be found in “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats.

• 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 may serve to illustrate:

• The Midnight Songs poetry form is from Fourth Century China, consisting of regular five-character lines, with each quatrain formed from a pair of rhymed couplets. The person matter involves the personal thoughts and feelings of a courtesan during the four seasons, into which the quatrains are individually assigned.
• Shairi (also known as Rustavelian Quatrain) is an rhyming form used mainly in The Knight in the Panther's Skin.
• The Shichigon-zekku form used on Classical Chinese poetry and Japanese poetry. This type of quatrain uses a seven-character line length. Both rhyme and rhythm are key elements, although the former is not restricted to falling at the end of the phrase.
• Ballad meter (The examples from "The Unquiet Grave" and "The Wife of Usher's Well" are both examples of ballad meter.)
• Decasyllabic quatrain used by John Dryden in Annus Mirabilis, William Davenant in Gondibert, and Thomas Gray
• Various hymns employ specific forms, such as the common meter, long meter, and short meter.
• In the Malay tradition, syair, pantun and pantoum are arranged in quatrains.

See also

• Bell number
• Combination
• Enclosed rhyme
• Rhyme scheme

Notes

References

• Quatrain