Stanza - Definition and Overview

In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. The term means "room" in Italian.

A stanza may have a self-contained rhyme scheme or be made up of a fixed number of lines (see distich/couplet, tercet, quatrain, cinquain/quintain, sestet) or, as in much modern poetry, may be an arbitrary unit defined by publishing conventions such as white space or punctuation.