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.

The ottava rima stanza in English consists of eight iambic lines, usually iambic pentameters. Each stanza consists of three alternate rhymes and one double rhyme, following the ${\displaystyle \mathrm {ABABABCC} }$ rhyme scheme. The form is similar to the older Sicilian octave, but evolved separately and is unrelated. The Sicilian octave is derived from the medieval strambotto and was a crucial step in the development of the sonnet, whereas the ottava rima is related to the canzone, a stanza form.

Boccaccio used ottava rima for a number of minor poems and, most significantly, for two of his major works, the Teseide (1340) and the Filostrato (c. 1335). These two poems defined the form as the main one to be used for epic poetry in Italian for the next two centuries. For instance, ottava rima was used by Poliziano and by Boiardo in his 1486 epic poem Orlando Innamorato. The following year, Luigi Pulci published his Morgante Maggiore in which the mock-heroic, half-serious, half-burlesque use of the form that is most familiar to modern English-language readers first appeared. However, poets such as Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso continued to use ottava rima for serious epic poetry.

Canto l’arme pietose, e ’l Capitano
Che ’l gran sepolcro liberò di Cristo.
Molto egli oprò col senno e con la mano;
Molto soffrì nel glorioso acquisto:
E invan l’Inferno a lui s’oppose; e invano
s’armò d’Asia e di Libia il popol misto:
Chè ’l Ciel gli diè favore, e sotto ai santi
Segni ridusse i suoi compagni erranti.

The sacred armies, and the godly knight,
That the great sepulchre of Christ did free,
I sing; much wrought his valor and foresight,
And in that glorious war much suffered he;
In vain 'gainst him did Hell oppose her might,
In vain the Turks and Morians armèd be:
His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutines prest,
Reducèd he to peace, so Heaven him blest.

In the epoch of Baroque Giambattista Marino employed ottava rima in Adone (1623). Another important work was written by a woman, Lucrezia Marinella, the author of long epic poem L'Enrico, ovvero Bisanzio acquistato (Enrico, or, Byzantium Conquered), that was translated into English by Maria Galli Stampino. There are also many other examples of using the stanza. Many classic works were translated into ottava rima. It was later used in Italian libretti; perhaps the most famous example ends with the title of the comic opera Così fan tutte (1789).

In English, ottava rima first appeared in Elizabethan translations of Tasso and Ariosto. The form also became popular for original works, such as Michael Drayton's The Barons' Wars, Thomas Heywood's Troia Britannica, or Emilia Lanier's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. William Browne's Britannia's Pastorals also contains passages in ottava rima. The first English poet to write mock-heroic ottava rima was John Hookham Frere, whose 1817-8 poem Prospectus and Specimen of an Intended National Work used the form to considerable effect. Lord Byron read Frere's work and saw the potential of the form. He quickly produced Beppo, his first poem to use the form. Shortly after this, Byron began working on his Don Juan (1819–1824), probably the best-known English poem in ottava rima. Byron also used the form for The Vision of Judgment (1822). Shelley translated the Homeric Hymns into English in ottava rima. In the 20th century, William Butler Yeats used the form in several of his best later poems, including "Sailing to Byzantium" and "Among School Children". So did Kenneth Koch for instance in his autobiographical poem "Seasons on Earth" of 1987. In America Emma Lazarus wrote the poem An Epistle that consists of thirty four ottava rimas. Earlier Richard Henry Wilde used the stanza in his long poem Hesperia. In keeping with the "mock-heroic" tone, Kevin McAleer wrote his 2018 biography of actor Errol Flynn entirely in ottava rima.

From Frere's Prospectus and Specimen of an Intended National Work, commonly known as The Monks and the Giants