The Spenserian Stanza

While "instant messaging" with Abby recently, she was working on a homework assignment. The assignment was to write a Spenserian stanza. Abby challenged me to write my own Spenserian stanza while she wrote hers.

I first required some “instant” instruction from Abby on what exactly a Spenserian stanza was. I was “instantly” taught the following:

The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) for his epic poem The Faerie Queene.

Each stanza of the poem is structured in this manner:

ABABBCBCC is the rhyme scheme, meaning that A lines end with rhyming words like go and Joe
The B lines end with different rhyming words like bat, cat, sat, and rat
The C lines end with yet a different set of rhyming words like car, bar, star.
Each stanza needs 9 lines.
The first eight lines in iambic pentameter (10 syllables per line).
The ninth line is set in iambic hexameter (12 syllables in the ninth line).

This is the first stanza of The Faerie Queene by Mr. Spencer

So dreadfully he towards him did pas,
Forelifting vp aloft his speckled brest,
And often bounding on the brused gras,
As for great ioyance of his newcome guest.
Eftsoones he gan aduance his haughtie crest,
As chauffed Bore his bristles doth vpreare,
And shoke his scales to battell readie drest;
That made the Redcrosse knight nigh quake for feare,
As bidding bold defiance to his foeman neare.


This is my Spenserian stanza.

Jakie Jakerson

Jakie Jakerson went happy walking
Down the lane where lilies dance mid dark loam
Mosey mostly with no need of talking
West east north, avoiding way toward home
No thought for planning, plenty time to roam.
Onward, wandering, sniffing. Now a quest!
South, now west and bolting, slobbering foam,
Panting, hurry, sniff, wagging, heaving chest;
Now done, tuckered, landing plop mid damp grass and rest.
By Mellanee Kilpack


Abby’s Spenserian stanza

Google Maps: Street View
(A Spenserian Stanza Experiment)

A long and lonesome road that winds through hills;
O’er forests, dales, the country sweet it roams.
It sees the land, the farmer as he tills,
The portly kids at rest, the lovely homes.
At sea it stops- Held by the ocean foams,
The friendless little road begins to weep
Above and way beyond the blue sky domes
Nowhere but back, through mountains tall and steep,
Retracing steps, he turns away from oceans deep.
By Abby Roberts

If you would like to learn more about Spenserian stanzas, you may wish to visit the following website: http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenser/stanza/about.html

Thanks Abby for just one more of the many things you have taught me and for always making learning with you so much fun, from finding bugs in dirt to Spenserian stanzas.
Love you forever,
Mom