The story
Invented by English poet Edmund Spenser (1552/53–1599) for his epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590–96).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Spenserian stanza
Today it means: A strophe of eight decasyllabic lines and an alexandrine, having three rhymes: the first and third; the second, fourth, fifth, and seventh; and the sixth, eighth, and ninth (ABABBCBCC). Full definition →