Octosyllable

 ( Types Of Verses ) 

The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a line of verse with eight . It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in in languages with a stress accent. Its first occurrence is in a 10th-century Old French saint's legend, the Leodegar;

(2025). 9781400841424, Princeton UP. ISBN 9781400841424

another early use is in the early 12th-century Anglo-Norman Voyage de saint Brendan.

(2025). 9789087041373, Verloren. ISBN 9789087041373

It is often used in French poetry, Italian poetry, Spanish poetry and Portuguese poetry. While commonly used in , typical using octosyllables are: décima, some , redondilla.

In Spanish verse, an octosyllable is a line that has its seventh syllable stressed, on the principle that this would normally be the penultimate syllable of a word ( Lengua Castellana y Literatura, ed. Grazalema Santillana. El Verso y su Medida, p. 46). If the final word of a line does not fit this pattern, the line could have eight or seven or nine syllables (as normally counted), thus –

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / Gra/NA/da

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / Ma/DRID

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / MA/(la)/ga

In Medieval French literature, the octosyllable couplet was the most common verse form used in verse , romances (the romans), lais and dits. The meter reached Spain in the 14th century, although commonly with a more varied rhyme scheme than the couplet. The Anglo-Norman poets from the 12th-13th centuries brought the French octosyllablic verse to England and influenced the 4 stress tetrameter verse used in narration (as in Chaucer).

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See also

• meter (poetry)
• hexasyllable – 6 syllable line
• decasyllable – 10 syllable line
• hendecasyllable – 11 syllable line
• dodecasyllable – 12 syllable line

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