Verses can be fragments or parts of a song.
From the Latin stropha (which, in turn, derives from a Greek word meaning "return" ), the term stanza makes reference to the different fragments that make up a poem or a song. It is common for these parts to be organized in the same way and made up of the same number of verses.
For meter, a stanza is a set of verses that are united by parameters of rhythm, length and rhyme. The stanzas can be classified according to the number of verses they present.
Types of stanzas
The stanzas that present two verses are known as couplets , elegiac couplets or joy , according to their specific composition.
The stanzas with three verses can be called soleá , tercet or thirdilla . The stanzas of four verses, for their part, can belong to the classification of quartet , quartet , copla , redondilla , serventesio , seguidilla or via notebook .
Limerick, double limerick, hendecasyllable limerick, quintet, lira (estrofas de cinco versos), sixth, sextille (estrofas de seis versos), compound seguidilla (estrofas de siete versos), real octave, pamphlet (estrofas de ocho versos), tenth (estrofas de diez versos) y sonnet (estrofa de catorce versos) son otros tipos de estrofas.
These data are important since, by knowing the structure of the stanzas, it is possible to write poems and precisely handle the notions of rhyme and rhythm.
A stanza, according to the meter, is a set of verses linked together by different parameters.
The real octave
Among all the types of stanzas mentioned, it is very important that we make special mention of some that acquire a lot of prominence within the field of artistic creation. This would be the case of the aforementioned and known as the real octave. It is defined as a consonant rhyming stanza that is made up of eight hendecasyllabic verses.
Specifically, we can determine that the one, of Italian origin, has three consonant rhymes and that the first six verses rhyme alternately while the last two give rise to a couplet. The Spanish poets José de Espronceda and Garcilaso de la Vega are two of the authors who have made the most and best use of the real octave.
In the literary field, in addition to everything stated above, we can also announce that the term stanza was already used in Antiquity by the Greeks. Specifically, they used this concept to refer to the initial part of a poem or lyrical song. More precisely, these could be formed in two ways: stanza and antistrophe, or stanza, antistrophe and epode. A latter division that more recently has also been used within what has been Spanish poetry.
The verse in music
Finally, it should be noted that the parts that make up the lyrics of a song are known as verses. The meaning, of course, is the same as that which refers to the composition of a poem. A fairly common song structure is verse-verse-chorus-verse-verse-chorus .
In this area, it must be emphasized that the best way to define a verse is as that part or section of a specific song that is repeated several times throughout it with the same melody but with different lyrics.