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What Is Terza Rima? Dante's Interlocking Rhyme

Terza rima is a verse form of three-line stanzas whose rhymes interlock: ABA BCB CDC, and onward, with the middle line of each stanza setting the rhyme for the outer lines of the next. Dante used it for the Divine Comedy. English writers usually cast it in iambic pentameter and close with a capping line or couplet.

Terza Rima in One Line

One rule governs the form: a stanza's second line supplies the rhyme for the first and third lines of the stanza that follows. The opening stanza picks two sounds, A and B. The next keeps B on the outside and puts a new sound, C, in the middle; the third keeps C and introduces D.

Two details are easy to miss. Rhymes are decided by sound, not spelling, so grey, day and away are one family while through and rough are not. And the form fixes no length; English practice almost always reaches for iambic pentameter.

Where the Chain Comes From

Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in terza rima in the early fourteenth century, in Italian, in eleven-syllable lines called endecasillabo; the name means "third rhyme". Italian offered him a deep store of easy rhymes, and the chain made a hundred cantos feel like walking.

English rhymes are scarcer, so poets moved from eleven syllables to five stresses and accepted the occasional half-rhyme. Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" and Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" both keep the chain.

How the Chain Runs: A Worked Example

The stanza below was written for this guide; the letters mark the chain.

I woke before the kettle found its steam, (A) and watched the window gather up the grey. (B) The street was still a page without a theme. (A) The postman came the way he comes each day, (B) and left no word but bills against the door. (C) I read the numbers twice and put them away. (B) The house kept talking through the wooden floor, (C) a language older than the pipes, a drum. (D) I did not answer it, and asked no more. (C) Then I let the morning come. (D)

Grey returns at lines four and six, door at seven and nine, and come answers the last tercet's middle rhyme, drum. Its outer rhymes were handed over by the stanza before, so only the middle sound is free. English poets often close with two lines, hence the ending sometimes appears as ABA BAB.

Writing Terza Rima in Four Steps

1. Choose a subject that can travel. A walk, a night, an argument, a letter that must be answered. Every stanza hands a rhyme forward, so the form suits poems that move.
2. Build a rhyme supply first. List four or five word families you can use; twelve lines need three that fit the subject, not the sound.
3. Write the first stanza, then obey its middle line. Take the B-word line two chose and find its partners for lines four and six. Planning every rhyme in advance usually serves a list, not a poem.
4. Close on the held rhyme. After the last tercet one sound is still owed. Give it a final line, or two.

Where the Difficulty Lives

Every complaint about terza rima comes down to the rhyme choosing the sentence. Three escapes are standard. Slant rhyme, an approximate match such as come and drum, when an exact one would drag in the wrong word. Enjambment, sending the sentence across the stanza break so the rhyme arrives inside a thought, as explained in line breaks in poetry. And keeping score: a writer who forgets which rhyme is owed will write AAA without noticing. Only the middle rhyme of a stanza is new, so the form is a sequence of forced choices rather than a cage, and the same logic is worth studying in any rhyme scheme.

Three Exercises

1. Finish the chain. Write a first stanza in ABA, then complete a second in BCB, keeping both about the same street or room so the chain must carry meaning as well as sound.
2. Convert a paragraph. Take ten to fourteen lines of your free verse and reline them as terza rima; you will find which lines only existed because nothing forced them.
3. Write three stanzas and stop. Nine lines plus a closing line is a complete passage; hold each line to ten syllables.

Terza Rima and Its Neighbours

Terza rima is easily confused with the other inherited forms. A sonnet is fourteen lines in one repeating pattern with a turn near the end; its rhymes loop rather than travel. A villanelle is nineteen lines built on two refrains, which is repetition, not interlock. A sestina turns six end-words through six stanzas and uses no rhyme. Terza rima is the only common form in which a stanza pays a debt to the one before it.

Reading Dante in English

Translations of the Divine Comedy divide by what they will lose. One keeping terza rima keeps the forward motion but accepts slant rhymes and pushed word order; one in blank verse holds the sense more exactly and gives up the chain. Read a canto aloud in both and listen.

Common Mistakes

• Breaking the chain. Writing AAA, or opening on a sound never handed over.
• Treating A as permanent. A is used at lines one and three and is then retired.
• Counting spelling instead of sound. grey and day rhyme; through and rough never will.
• Forcing the rhyme and breaking the sense. Slant rhyme or enjambment is cheaper.
• Forgetting the close. A passage that stops after a full tercet leaves a rhyme hanging.

Frequently asked questions

What is terza rima in simple terms?

Terza rima is a poem built from three-line stanzas whose rhymes interlock: ABA BCB CDC, and so on. The middle line of each stanza sets the rhyme that opens and closes the next one.

Who invented terza rima?

Dante Alighieri used it for the Divine Comedy in the early fourteenth century, writing in Italian in eleven-syllable lines called endecasillabo. English poets later borrowed the form and recast it in iambic pentameter.

Does terza rima have to rhyme perfectly?

Sound counts, not spelling, so grey, day and away are one rhyme while through and rough are not. English has fewer easy rhymes than Italian, so many writers allow slant rhyme instead of forcing an exact one.

How long is a terza rima poem?

The form sets no length. It can run for three stanzas or for a hundred cantos, as Dante's does. What it sets is direction: every stanza except the last hands a rhyme forward.

How does a terza rima poem end?

After the final tercet the writer adds a line rhyming with that tercet's middle line, which is the rhyme the chain still holds. English poets often add a couplet instead, so the ending may appear as ABA BAB.

There is no single correct way to write in terza rima. Work from the translation or the poem you have chosen as your model, and follow the conventions that version keeps.