Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry the 16th century Jan Kochanowski created a three-line stanza, being just a shortened Sapphic stanza (11/11/5), and used it in his "Psalm 34". Much later Kochanowski's proposal was used by Cyprian Kamil Norwid in his famous poem "Coś ty Atenom zrobił, Sokratesie?" ("What Did You Do to Athens, Socrates?") Juliusz Słowacki, a romantic poet, frequently used a sexain rhyming "a b a b c c", and invented a stanza using this rhyme scheme but suggesting the Sapphic stanza in its metre: 11a/11b/11a/5b/11c/5c. It is also possible that Słowacki was inspired by the well-known Burns stanza which also consists of four
Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry The Sapphic stanza is the only stanzaic form adapted from Greek and Latin poetry to be used widely in Polish literature. It was introduced during the Renaissance, and since has been used frequently by many prominent poets. The importance of the Sapphic stanza for Polish literature lies not only in its frequent use, but also in the fact that it formed the basis of many new strophes, built up of hendecasyllables (11-syllable lines) and pentasyllables (5-syllable lines). The stanza comes from classical Greece, but it was the Romans, especially Horace, who provided the chief models