Ottava rima is a verse form originating in late medieval Italy, consisting of stanzas of eight hendesyllabic (or 11-syllable) lines rhyming abababcc. The
form was popularized by BOCCACCIO, who first
used it in his Il FILOSTRATO (ca. 1339) and TESEIDA(ca. 1341).
The form was in existence prior to Boccaccio,
however: It may have developed from stanza forms
used in certain CANZONI or SIRVENTES; or it may
have come from an earlier Italian genre called the
strambotto, which was a single stanza of six or eight
lines used generally for sentimental love poems.
The strambotto took a variety of forms, but one
form popular in Tuscany did use the abababcc
rhyme scheme. It has also been conjectured that
MINSTRELS were using this particular strambotto
verse form for composing long narrative poems
by the early 14th century. Whether or not that is
true, it is certain that ottava rima appears in religious poems from the late 13th century.
Although Boccaccio did not invent the form, he
refined it and popularized it for use in long narrative texts. Part of Boccaccio’s immense influence
on CHAUCER included his use of the narrative verse
stanza: Chaucer developed his RHYME ROYAL stanza
after reading Boccaccio’s narratives and deciding
to drop the final a rhyme from the form, creating
a seven-line stanza rhyming ababbcc. Subsequent
Italian writers, however, made greater use of Boccaccio’s ottava rima itself, notably Ariosto and
Tasso in the Renaissance. Thomas Wyatt is credited
for introducing ottava rima into English in the
16th century (using iambic pentameter rather than
hendesyllabic lines), and it was later used by
Spenser, Milton, and most effectively by Lord
Byron in his mock epic Don Juan.