A-Z: General definitions
- Obeah
- Oberon
- Objective correlative
- Objectivity
- Oblate
- Oblation
- Obscene
- Obsolete
- Occult
- Oceanids
- Oceanus
- Octave
- Octet
- Ode
- Odysseus
- Odysseus and Circe
- Odysseus and Scylla and Charybdis
- Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus
- Odysseus and the Sirens
- Odyssey
- Oedipus
- Oedipus complex
- Oedipus Rex
- Oenomaus
- Oenon
- Offensive
- Offering
- Oil
- Old Covenant
- Old English
- Old Lady Day
- Old Latin
- Old Testament
- Oligarchy
- Olive tree
- Oliver Cromwell
- Olympian
- Olympian gods
- Olympus
- Omen
- Omnipotent
- Omnipresence
- Omniscience
- Omniscient Narrator
- One thing is needful
- Onesimus
- Onomatopoeia
- Opera
- Oracle
- Oral Literature
A-Z: General definitions: Octave
Definition
The 8-line stanza of a Petrarchan sonnet, always occupying the first eight lines. It sometimes has a division halfway, creating two quatrains. It poses a problem or describes some single object or incident.The technical name for a verse, or a regular repeating unit of so many lines in a poem. Poetry can be stanzaic or non-stanzaic.
In the style of Petrarch, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, who created both a form of the sonnet and presented a courtly ideal of womanhood.
A sonnet is a poem with a special structure. It has fourteen lines, which are organised in a particular manner, usually characterised by the pattern of rhyming, which changes as the ideas in the poem evolve.
A quatrain is a 4-line stanza, usually rhyming.
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