Poetry other variations of "shi" poetry, generally either a four line (quatrain, or "jueju") or else an eight line poem is normal; either way with the even numbered lines rhyming. The line length is scanned by according number of characters (according to the convention that one character equals one syllable), and are predominantly either five or seven characters long, with a caesura before the final three syllables. The lines are generally end-stopped, considered as a series of couplets, and exhibit verbal parallelism as a key poetic device. The "old style" verse ("gushi") is less formally strict than the "jintishi", or regulated
Spenserian stanza the Spenserian stanza, among others "Stvoření světa" ("The Creation of the World"): In the long poem "The Forest Sanctuary", Felicia Hemans employs a similar nine-line stanza, rhyming ABABCCBDD, with the first eight lines in iambic pentameter and the ninth an alexandrine. Spenserian stanza The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem "The Faerie Queene" (1590–96). Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is ABABBCBCC. This example is the first stanza from Spenser's