alcaic stanza

The metrical pattern of an Alcaic stanza would look like this:

Horace used the Alcaic stanza in his Odes, as can be seen from this example :

The Alcaic stanza was adapted to use in English and French during the Renaissance.

One notable form is the Alcaic stanza (e.g. Alcaeus frr.

The Alcaic stanza and the Sapphic stanza named for Alcaeus' contemporary, Sappho, are two important forms of Classical poetry.

Horace extended and standardized the use of Aeolics in Latin, also using the Alcaic stanza, the Lesser Asclepiad, and hipponacteans.

The Alcaic stanza is a Greek lyrical meter, an Aeolic verse form traditionally believed to have been invented by Alcaeus, a lyric poet from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, about 600 BC.

In his second book, in an ode composed in Alcaic stanzas on the subject of an almost fatal accident he had on his farm, he imagines meeting Alcaeus and Sappho in Hades:

He identified in particular with Alcaeus of Mytilene, composing Alcaic stanzas, and with Archilochus, composing poetic invectives in the Iambus tradition (in which he adopted the metrical form of the epode or "iambic distich").