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QUATORZAIN From the French quatorze (four-
teen), a quatorzain is a poem similar to the SONNET. It
consists of 14 rhymed iambic lines divided into two
tercets (a group of three lines of verse) and two qua-
trains (a group of four lines of verse), and always end-
ing in a COUPLET (unlike sonnets, which do not always
do so). Technically, most of the Elizabethan SONNET
SEQUENCEs were truly composed of quatorzains, not
sonnets, but few 16th-century poets made the distinc-
tion (an exception being MICHAEL DRAYTON). Some crit-
ics also believe that SIR PHILIP SIDNEY employed the
form deliberately in his collection CERTAIN SONNETS,

which contains a miscellany of forms. Later poets, such

as John Donne, clarifi ed the two forms.

QUATRAIN A four-line STANZA composed of

rhyming lines. The quatrain is the most common stan-

zaic form used in English poetry. The sets of lines that

make up the fi rst four or eight lines of a SONNET are

also referred to as quatrains.

The most common rhyme schemes include: abac or

abcb (BALLAD STANZA, used also for hymns), aabb (dou-

ble COUPLET), and abab (heroic quatrain, usually in IAM-

BIC PENTAMETER).

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