Hendecasyllable in the context of "Silvae"

The Petrarchan sonnet, also known as the Italian sonnet, is a type of sonnet named after the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca, although it was not developed by Petrarch himself, but rather by a string of Renaissance poets. Because of the structure of Italian, the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet is more easily fulfilled in that language than in English. The original Italian sonnet form consists of a total of fourteen hendecasyllabic lines in two parts, the first part being an octave and the second being a sestet.

Octave has been derived from the Latin word octāva, which means “eighth part.” It is a verse form that contains eight lines, which usually appear in an iambic pentameter. In simple words, it can be any stanza in a poem that has eight lines and follows a rhymed or unrhymed meter.

An octave is a verse form consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter (in English) or of hendecasyllables (in Italian). The most common rhyme scheme for an octave is ${\displaystyle \mathrm {ABBA\,\,ABBA} }$.

The Alcaic stanza is a Greek lyrical meter, an Aeolic verse form traditionally believed to have been invented by Alcaeus, a lyric poet from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, about 600 BC. The Alcaic stanza and the Sapphic stanza named for Alcaeus' contemporary, Sappho, are two important forms of Classical poetry. The Alcaic stanza consists of two Alcaic hendecasyllables, followed by an Alcaic enneasyllable and an Alcaic decasyllable.

In Italian poetry, verso sciolto (plural versi sciolti) refers to poetry written in hendecasyllables and lacking rhyme. It is very similar to blank verse in English poetry, and the two terms are often used interchangeably.

Terza rima (/ˌtɛərtsə ˈriːmə/, also US: /ˌtɜːr-/, Italian: [ˈtɛrtsa ˈriːma]; lit. 'third rhyme') is a rhyming verse form, in which the poem, or each poem-section, consists of tercets (three-line stanzas) with an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: The last word of the second line in one tercet provides the rhyme for the first and third lines in the tercet that follows (${\displaystyle \mathrm {ABA\,\,BCB\,\,CDC} }$). The poem or poem-section may have any number of lines (not divisible by 3), but it ends with either a single line or a couplet, which repeats the rhyme of the middle line of the previous tercet (${\displaystyle \mathrm {YZY\,\,Z} }$ or ${\displaystyle \mathrm {YZY\,\,ZZ} }$).

Terza rima was invented early in the fourteenth century by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri for his narrative poem the Divine Comedy, which he set in hendecasyllabic lines. In English, poets often use iambic pentameter. Terza rima is a challenging form for a poet, and it did not become common in the century following its invention. The form is especially challenging in languages that are inherently less rich in rhymes than Italian.