Spenserian Metre
Preserved but no longer current.
The metre devised by Spenser (1592), founded on the Italian ottava nma, for his Faerie Queene. It is a stanza of nine iambic^ lines, all of ten syllables except the last, which is an Alexandrine. Only three different rhymes are admitted into a stanza, and these are disposed :ababbcbcc.
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 “Spenserian Metre” mean?
The metre devised by Spenser (1592), founded on the Italian ottava nma, for his Faerie Queene. It is a stanza of nine iambic^ lines, all of ten syllables except the last, which is an Alexandrine. Only three different rhymes are admitted into a stanza, and these are disposed :ababbcbcc.
Is “Spenserian Metre” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.