Ottava Riraa
Preserved but no longer current.
A stanza of eight ten-syllabled lines, rhyming abababcc, used by Keats in Lis Isabella, Byron in Don Juan, etc. It was originally Italian and was employed by Tasso (the lines were eleven- syllabled), Ariosto, and many others.
Một khổ thơ gồm tám dòng mười âm tiết, vần abababcc
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Ottava Riraa” mean?
A stanza of eight ten-syllabled lines, rhyming abababcc, used by Keats in Lis Isabella, Byron in Don Juan, etc. It was originally Italian and was employed by Tasso (the lines were eleven- syllabled), Ariosto, and many others.
Is “Ottava Riraa” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.