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Rime Royal (or Rhyme royal) is a rhyming
Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes....
 stanza
Stanza

In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "Verse " ....
 form that was introduced into English
English literature

The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S....
 poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, Bureaucracy, Noble court and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales....
.

History
Chaucer first used the rhyme royal stanza in his long poems Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde is Geoffrey Chaucer's poem in rhyme royal re-telling the tragic love story of Troilus, a Troy prince, and Cressida. Scholarly consensus is that Chaucer completed Troilus and Criseyde by the mid 1380's....
 and Parlement of Foules
Parlement of Foules

The "Parlement of Foules" is a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer made up by approximately 700 lines. The poem is in the form of a dream vision in rhyme royal stanza and is interesting as it is the first reference to the idea that St....
.






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Rime Royal (or Rhyme royal) is a rhyming
Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes....
 stanza
Stanza

In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "Verse " ....
 form that was introduced into English
English literature

The term English literature refers to literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was Polish, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, Salman Rushdie is Indian, V.S....
 poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, Bureaucracy, Noble court and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales....
.

Form


The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a type of meter that is used in poetry and drama. It describes a particular rhythm that the words establish in each Line ....
. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. In practice, the stanza can be constructed either as a terza rima
Terza rima

Terza rima is a rhyme Verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poetry poet Dante Alighieri....
 and two couplet
Couplet

A couplet is a pair of Hairs of bags . It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter. Some cultures have decorative traditions associated with them....
s (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or a quatrain
Quatrain

A quatrain is a poem composed of two rhyming couplets, or a stanza within a poem, that consists always of four lines. The rhyming patterns include aabb, abab, abba, abcb, aaba, or aaaa ....
 and a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c). This allows for a good deal of variety, especially when the form is used for longer narrative
Narrative poetry

Narrative poetry is poetry that tells a story and is a snapshot of a poet's thoughts and feelings. The poems may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex....
 poems and along with the couplet, it was the standard narrative metre in the late Middle Ages.

History


Chaucer first used the rhyme royal stanza in his long poems Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde

Troilus and Criseyde is Geoffrey Chaucer's poem in rhyme royal re-telling the tragic love story of Troilus, a Troy prince, and Cressida. Scholarly consensus is that Chaucer completed Troilus and Criseyde by the mid 1380's....
 and Parlement of Foules
Parlement of Foules

The "Parlement of Foules" is a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer made up by approximately 700 lines. The poem is in the form of a dream vision in rhyme royal stanza and is interesting as it is the first reference to the idea that St....
. He also used it for four of the Canterbury Tales including the Man of Law's Tale, the Prioress' Tale, and in a number of shorter lyrics. He may have adapted the form from a French
French literature

French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional languages of France....
 ballade
Ballade

The ballade is a Verse form typically consisting of three eight-line stanzas, each with a consistent metre and a particular rhyme scheme. The last line in the stanza is a refrain, and the stanzas are followed by a four-line concluding stanza usually addressed to a prince....
 stanza or from the Italian
Italian literature

Italian literature is literature written in the Italian language, particularly within Italy. It may also refer to literature written by Italian people or in Italy in other languages spoken in Italy, often languages that are closely related to modern Italian....
 Ottava rima
Ottava rima

Ottava rima is a rhyme stanza form of Italy origin. Originally used for long poems on heroic themes, it also came to be popular in the writing of mock-heroic works....
, with the omission of the fifth line.

James I of Scotland
James I of Scotland

James I was nominal King of Scots from 4 April 1406, and reigning King of Scots from May 1424 until 21 February 1437....
 used rhyme royal for his Chaucerian poem The Kingis Quair
The Kingis Quair

The Kingis Quair is a fifteenth-century poem attributed to James I of Scotland. It is semi-autobiographical in nature, describing the King's capture by the England in 1406 on his way to France and his subsequent imprisonment by Henry IV of England and his successors, Henry V of England and Henry VI of England....
, and it is believed that the name of the stanza derives from this royal use. English and Scottish poets were greatly influenced by Chaucer in the century after his death and most made use of the form in at least some of their works. John Lydgate
John Lydgate

John Lydgate of Bury was a monk and poet, born in Lidgate, Suffolk, England....
 used the stanza for many of his occasional and love poems. The Scottish poet Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson

Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460?1500. Counted among the Scots language makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the northern renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities....
 consistently used the stanza throughout his two longest works, the Morall Fabillis and Testament of Cresseid, while the anonymous The Flower and the Leaf is another early use of the form. In the 16th century Thomas Wyatt
Thomas Wyatt (poet)

Sir Thomas Wyatt was a 16th century English lyric poetry....
 used it in his poem They flee from me that sometime did me seek, Thomas Sackville
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset

Sir Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset was an England statesman and poet, son of Richard Sackville , a cousin to Anna Boleyn. Thomas Sackville married Cicely Baker in 1555....
 in the Induction to The Mirror for Magistrates, Alexander Barclay
Alexander Barclay

Dr Alexander Barclay , England/Scotland poet, was born about 1476. His place of birth is matter of dispute, but William Bulleyn, who was a native of Ely, and probably knew him when he was in the monastery there, asserts that he was born "beyonde the cold river of Twede" ....
 in his Ship of Fools and Stephen Hawes
Stephen Hawes

Stephen Hawes , was a popular English poet during the Tudor dynasty period who is now little known. He was probably born in Suffolk owing to the commonness of the name in that area and, if his own statement of his age may be trusted, was born about 1474....
 in his Pastime of Pleasure.

The seven-line stanza began to go out of fashion during the Elizabethan era but it was still used by John Davys in Orchestra and by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English people poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist....
 in The Rape of Lucrece
The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia.In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis , Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a "graver work"....
. Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser was an important England poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem celebrating, through fantastical allegory, the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I....
 wrote his Hymn of Heavenly Beauty using rhyme royal but he also derived his own Spenserian stanza
Spenserian stanza

The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his Epic poetry The Faerie Queene. Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'Alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter....
 with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c partly by adapting rhyme royal. Like many stanzaic forms, rhyme royal fell out of fashion during the Restoration, and has never been widely used since. However, William Wordsworth employed rhyme royal (slightly modified by an alexandrine in the seventh line) in "Resolution and Independence
Resolution and Independence

Resolution and Independence is a lyric poem by the English Romantic poetry William Wordsworth, composed in 1802 and published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes....
," and notable twentieth-century poems in the stanza are W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden who signed his works W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, regarded by many as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century....
's Letter to Lord Byron (as well as some of the stanzas in The Shield of Achilles) and W. B. Yeats's A Bronze Head.

Some examples


The three examples below are each from a different century. The first, composed in the 14th century, is from Chaucer and if, as some scholars believe, it is one of his earliest poems, then it is possibly the first manifestation of the form in English. The second example is from 15th century Scotland where the stanza was very widely taken up and developed. The last, from Thomas Wyatt, is a 16th century illustration of the form (modernised).

  • Opening stanza of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
    Troilus and Criseyde

    Troilus and Criseyde is Geoffrey Chaucer's poem in rhyme royal re-telling the tragic love story of Troilus, a Troy prince, and Cressida. Scholarly consensus is that Chaucer completed Troilus and Criseyde by the mid 1380's....
    :


The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen,
That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,
In lovinge, how his aventures fellen
Fro wo to wele, and after out of Ioye,
My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye,
Thesiphone
Tisiphone

Tisiphone is the name of two figures in Greek mythology....
, thou help me for tendyte
Composition (language)

The term Composition, in written language, refers to the process and study of creating written works or pieces of literature. This can be in the form of poetry, drama, essays or prose....
Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryt


  • Example from Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, in a stanza which describes the god Saturn
    Saturn (mythology)

    Saturn was a major Roman mythology god of agriculture and harvest. In medieval times he was known as the Roman god of agriculture, justice and strength; he held a sickle in his left hand and a bundle of wheat in his right....
     hailing from an extremely cold realm:


His face fronsit
Wrinkle

File:Old Bangladeshi drinking tea cropped.jpgA wrinkle is a fold, ridge or crease in the skin. Skin wrinkles typically appear as a result of aging processes such as glycation or, temporarily, as the result of prolonged immersion in water....
, his lyre
Complexion

Complexion refers to the natural color, texture, and appearance of the skin, especially that of the face. The word is derived from the Late Latin complexi, which initially referred in general terms to a combination of things, and later in physiological terms, to the balance of humors....
 was lyke the leid
Lead

Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
,
His teith chatterit and cheverit with the chin,
His ene drowpit
Sagging

Sagging is a form of the verb to sag 'to drop, to droop'; used as a substantivated adjective, it may mean*Sagging , a fashion trend for wearing pants below the waist to expose one's boxers, practiced by males...
, how sonkin in his heid,
Out of his nois the meldrop
Mucus

In vertebrates, mucus is a slippery secretion produced by, and covering, mucous membranes. It is a viscous colloid containing antiseptic enzymes and immunoglobulins that serves to protect Epithelium in the respiratory,...
 fast can rin,
With lippis bla
Paleness (color)

Paleness of color is the property of being a light or pastel version of another color of the same hue. The paler color has higher luminance, and lower chrominance .The color can also mean a white color of the skin ....
 and cheikis leine and thin;
The ice-schoklis that fra his hair doun hang
Was wonder greit and as ane speir
Spear

A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a sharpened head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be of another material fastened to the shaft, such as obsidian, iron or bronze....
 als lang
Length

Length is the long dimension of any object. The length of a thing is the distance between its ends, its linear extent as measured from end to end....
.


  • Opening to Thomas Wyatt's rhyme royal poem:


They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.


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