{"id":"01KG6S5NC7HBKS4XT4RMN0R7R6","cid":"bafkreia2syznr2n3hk4w2s6vu2qa6b6l3pyoexn2wgwrpt36rne5zpfyqa","type":"section","properties":{"description":"# The popularity of the six-line stanza.\n\n## Overview\nThis section, titled \"The popularity of the six-line stanza,\" is an analytical text extracted from a larger document. It discusses the prevalence and influence of the six-line stanza (sixain, rhyming ababcc) in 16th-century English and French poetry, particularly in relation to William Shakespeare's poem *Venus and Adonis*. The section spans lines 696 to 712 of its source file.\n\n## Context\nThis section is part of the chapter [VENUS AND ADONIS](arke:01KG6S4BKQ65P7DTQM82TXFB34), which is itself contained within a larger collection titled [PDF Workflow Main Test 2026-01-30T00:26:53](arke:01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y). It was extracted from the text file [pdf-01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF.txt](arke:01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA). Preceding this section is a section titled [Robert Greene.](arke:01KG6S5NCAK41XDRG576B7DWDA), and it is followed by a section titled [Reception of Shakespeare's poem.](arke:01KG6S5NCADJ9C1PYB7Y0YMC1M).\n\n## Contents\nThe section examines how Shakespeare's *Venus and Adonis* reflects contemporary literary trends, specifically its adoption of the six-line stanza. It cites literary figures and works to illustrate the stanza's popularity, including George Gascoigne's *Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English* (1575), Puttenham's *The Arte of English Poesie* (1589), Edmund Spenser's *Astrophel* (1595) and \"Teares of the Muses\" (1591), Thomas Lodge's *Scillaes Metamorphosis* (1589), and Nicholas Breton's *The Pilgrimage to Paradise* (1592). The text also notes Chaucer's earlier use of the six-lined stanza in *Womanly Noblesse* and *The Clerkes Tale*. It concludes by mentioning Shakespeare's early use of sixains in his play *Love's Labour's Lost* as evidence of his early predilection for the metre.","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T06:25:32.410Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"The popularity of the six-line stanza.","end_line":712,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T06:24:08.801Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"The popularity of the six-line stanza.","source_file":"01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA","start_line":696,"text":"The popularity of the six-line stanza.\n\nFrom whatever point of view Shakespeare's poem is examined there emerge manifest signs of its close association with the contemporary trend of literary endeavour in England as well as on the continent of Europe. It absorbed from all available quarters suggestions and ideas of many degrees of\n\n<!-- [Page 42](arke:01KG6QAN17JBPZ6S88WBXX0AP8) -->\nVENUS AND ADONIS 35\ndignity. Shakespeare's genius transmuted most of his ingredients and fused them into a rich and consistent work of art. But the constituent elements deserve careful attention. The choice of metre is a final testimony to the young author's readiness to accept accessible guidance. The sixain or six-lined stanza, riming ababcc, which Shakespeare adopted, was among the commonest of all forms of verse in both English and French poetry of the sixteenth century. George Gascoigne, in his *Certayne notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English* (1575), writes familiarly of ‘sixaines’ as the fitting vehicle ‘for shorte phantazies’. Puttenham described the ‘staffe of sixe verses’ as ‘most usual’ and ‘very pleasant to th’ eare’. The most notable example of the employment of the sixain before Shakespeare’s *Venus and Adonis* is offered by Edmund Spenser’s *Astrophel, a pastoral elegy upon the death of... Sir Philip Sidney*, which was written in 1586, and after wide circulation in manuscript was printed for the first time in 1595. The poetic lament by the Countess of Pembroke, Sidney’s sister, which is appended to Spenser’s *Astrophel*, is also in the same metre; so, too, is Spenser’s ‘Teares of the Muses’ in his *Complaints*, 1591. A longer effort in the six-line stanza is, as we have seen, the narrative poem by Thomas Lodge entitled *Scillaes Metamorphosis: Enterlaced with the unfortunate loue of Glaucus*, which appeared in 1589. Robert Greene penned numerous short poems in sixains, and Nicholas Breton published in 1592 in the six-lined stanza a long allegory together with a religious\n\n* Cf. Puttenham’s *The Arte of English Poesie* (1589), Book ii, Chap. ii, ‘Of Proportion in Staffe.’ Puttenham also notes of ‘the staffe of sixe verses’ that it ‘also serueth for a greater complement then the inferiour staues, which maketh him more commonly to be vsed’. Chaucer twice uses the six-lined stanza with an exceptional scheme of rime, once in the Envoy to the short poem *Womanly Noblesse*, where the rimes run ababaz, and again in the Envoy to *The Clerkes Tale*, where the rimes run ababcb.\n\nE 2\n\n<!-- [Page 43](arke:01KG6QANJPS64XY242KBAFM7SD) -->\n36 VENUS AND ADONIS\n\nrhapsody under the joint title of *The Pilgrimage to Paradise*, ioyned with the Countess of Penbrookes loue. The skilful management of the metre by Spenser, Lodge, and Breton—the pleasant alternation of the alternately riming quatrains with the riming couplet—left Shakespeare small opportunity of improvement, and although his mastery is for the most part complete he did not travel far beyond the bounds that his predecessors had assigned the stanza.¹ Of the attraction that the metre had for him in early life, he has left an interesting testimony outside the poem. In what is probably his earliest play, *Love's Labour's Lost*, he attempted to turn sixains to dramatic uses, and one of the hero Biron's speeches, Act i, Sc. 1, ll. 151–62, is in regular six-lined stanzas. But the awkward experiment was not repeated on the stage, and its main interest lies in the evidence it offers of Shakespeare's predilection for the metre at a very early stage of his career.\n","title":"The popularity of the six-line stanza."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6S4BKQ65P7DTQM82TXFB34","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6S5NCAK41XDRG576B7DWDA","peer_type":"section","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6S5NCADJ9C1PYB7Y0YMC1M","peer_type":"section","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T06:24:12.679Z","ts":"2026-01-30T06:25:32.614Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}