[se-stee-nuh] 
[-ney] . Prosody. | a poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end. |
| ses·ti·na (sě-stē'nə) n. A verse form first used by the Provençal troubadours, consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy. The end words of the first stanza are repeated in varied order as end words in the other stanzas and also recur in the envoy. [Italian, from sesto, sixth, from Latin sextus; see s(w)eks in Indo-European roots.] |
sestina
elaborate verse form employed by medieval Provencal and Italian, and occasional modern, poets. It consists, in its pure medieval form, of six stanzas of blank verse, each of six lines-hence the name. The final words of the first stanza appear in varied order in the other five, the order used by the Provencals being: abcdef, faebdc, cfdabe, ecbfad, deacfb, bdfeca. Following these was a stanza of three lines, in which the six key words were repeated in the middle and at the end of the lines, summarizing the poem or dedicating it to some person
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