poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

, a ballad stanza is a type of a four- line stanza, known as a quatrain, most often found in the folk

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...

. The ballad stanza consists of a total of four lines, with the first and third lines written in the

iambic tetrameter Iambic tetrameter is a meter (poetry), poetic meter in Ancient Greek poetry, ancient Greek and Latin poetry; as the name of ''a rhythm'', iambic tetrameter consists of four metra, each metron being of the form , x – u – , , consisting of a spo ...

and the second and fourth lines written in the iambic trimeter with a rhyme scheme of ABCB. Assonance in place of rhyme is common.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

adopted the ballad stanza in '' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner''. :All in a hot and copper sky! :The bloody Sun, at noon, :Right up above the mast did stand, :No bigger than the Moon. :::Coleridge, ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner','' lines 111 – 114 The longer first and third lines are rarely rhymed, although at times poets may use internal rhyme in these lines. :In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, :It perched for vespers nine; :Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, :While the creatures crooned :::Coleridge, ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,'' lines 75 – 78 :::

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ballad Stanza Stanzaic form Ballads