Quintilla

In Spanish verse theory, the quintilla ( Spanish for "five-line") is a stanza form made up of five so-called Spanish trochies , i.e. alternating eight-syllables . The rhyme scheme is mostly [ababa], but also [abbab], [abaab] or [aabba]occur. In popular poetry, assonances are used instead of rhymes . Special forms of the qintilla are created by replacing individual eight-syllable verses (usually the second or fifth) with five-syllable .

Example:

El aire se serena
y viste de hermosura y luz no usada,
Salinas, cuando suena
la música extremada
por vuestra sabia mano gobernada.

Translation:

How cheerful becomes, how clear
and youthful and light, what surrounds us,
Salinas, wonderful
when the music sounds,
elated by your art-loving hand.

literature

Dieter Burdorf, Christoph Fasbender, Burkhard Moennighoff (ed.): Metzler Lexicon Literature. Terms and definitions. 3rd edition Metzler, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-476-01612-6 , p. 625.
Dorothy Clotelle Clarke: Sobre la quintilla. In: Revista de filologia española 20 (1933), pp. 288-295.
Gero von Wilpert : Subject dictionary of literature. 8th edition Kröner, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-520-84601-3 , p. 657.