My Cat’s Epic Adventure in Poetry

Learning the Ottava Rima poetic style with a quirky cat

image created by the author in Canva

I’m continuing to learn new poetic styles, always with my discerning cat watching over me. It’s almost like having Grammarly with fur.

Ottava Rima Poetry

This form of poetry dates back to the fourteenth century when Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio helped establish it in his influential works.

Ottava rima is a style of poetry with eight lines per stanza and a rhyme scheme of ABABABCC. It was often used in epic poetry and later inspired satirical poems like John Hookham Frere’s “The Monks and the Giants” and Lord Byron’s “Don Juan.”

The first six lines alternate rhyming, and the last two form a couplet with a double rhyme. Each line has 10–11 syllables in iambic pentameter, a flexible form famous poets have used for both sincere and dramatic works.

Other famous examples of Ottava Rima

“Among School Children” by William Butler Yeats: A glimpse into Yeats’s thoughts regarding memories, as was his “Sailing to Byzantium,” a metaphorical poem reflecting a spiritual journey.

“Isabella: or the Pot of Basil” by John Keats: Keats transformed a character from a Boccaccio work into an Ottava…