Octonary
Appearance
An octonary is an eight-line section in a poem, song or psalm.[1] The most notable example is found in Psalm 118[2]
In the French renaissance the octonaire became a form of moralizing chanson.
References
- ^ Merriam-Webster's encyclopedia of literature 1995 p825 "octonary \'ak-ta-,ner-e \ In poetry, a stanza or group of eight verses;"
- ^ Calvin Bible Commentaries: Psalms, Part IV p287 "Some call this the octonary psalm, because that, through every successive eight verses, the initial words of each line begin with the same letter in alphabetical order."