Terza rima is a rhymed verse form built from three-line stanzas (tercets) in an interlocking chain rhyme, aba bcb cdc ded, and so on, closing with a single extra line or couplet. Dante Alighieri is credited with originating the form for the Divine Comedy in the early fourteenth century, and the interlocking rhyme is often read as itself carrying a symbolic charge, echoing the poem's trinitarian theology.
Facts
Place of OriginDante Alighieri is credited with originating the form for the Divine Comedy in the early fourteenth century. StructureThree-line stanzas (tercets) in interlocking chain rhyme, aba bcb cdc ded, closing with a single extra line or couplet. 1 Notable ExampleDante Alighieri, the Divine Comedy (early fourteenth century) 1 Connections
Associated With
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Form Of Genre
Epic, Genres Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Italy, originated there.
Sources
1. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press- s.v. Terza rima
- Associated With: The Divine Comedy, Dante composed the Divine Comedy in terza rima, an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme (aba bcb cdc...) credited to him as its originator.
- Form Of Genre: Epic, Long associated with sustained narrative and epic verse, most famously Dante's Divine Comedy.
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