Huitain
Quick answer: A huitain is a French eight-line stanza or poem, usually rhyming ababbcbc, mastered by Francois Villon. Learn its rules, history, and modern possibilities.
A huitain is an eight-line stanza or complete eight-line poem from the French tradition, classically built on three rhyme sounds in the scheme ababbcbc, with every line carrying the same syllable count, eight or ten syllables in French practice. The name simply comes from huit, eight. Where the Sicilian octave weaves two sounds and ottava rima saves a couplet for last, the huitain pivots in the middle: its fourth and fifth lines share the b rhyme, hinging the stanza into two linked halves.
The form's great tenant is Francois Villon, whose fifteenth century Testament runs through scores of huitains, mixing mockery, repentance, and street-level detail. In English, the stanza appears wherever poets import French shapes, and it remains an excellent frame for poems that want to turn on a hinge rather than close with a snap.
How It Works
The ababbcbc wiring divides the eight lines into two quatrains that share a seam: abab, then bcbc, with the doubled b rhyme at lines four and five stitching them together. That seam is the form's dramatic opportunity, a natural place for the poem's thought to swerve while the sound insists on continuity. An original example in loose four-beat lines:
My aunt kept everything that shone: / foil stars, dead watches, chandelier drops, / coins from countries that had gone. / We laughed about her magpie shops, / then cleared them out when her heart stopped, / and found, tagged in her careful hand, / each trinket labelled whom it swaps / to: all that glitter, all that planned.
The hinge falls where laughter turns to clearing out; the shared rhyme carries the reader over the poem's saddest step.
Where You Will See It
Villon's Testament is the monument: huitain after huitain bequeathing insults, prayers, and imaginary legacies to friends and enemies, a voice so alive it still startles. Clement Marot and other Renaissance French poets kept the form for epigrams and courtly compliments, and the huitain also serves as the standard stanza of the ballade family's cousins. English-language poets have used it mainly in translation and homage; versions of Villon by poets from Rossetti onward wrestle his huitains into English, and contemporary formalists pick the stanza up when they want French machinery with a medieval growl.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Keep a steady syllable count, eight-syllable lines are the friendliest in English, and choose three rhyme sounds with plenty of options, slanting where needed. Then exploit the hinge: plan your poem as two quatrains of material, before and after, public and private, joke and cost, and let lines four and five hand one to the other. Villon's example suggests the form loves inventories, bequests, and lists with attitude. A sequence of huitains, one per person or object, builds a testament of your own, and the repeated shape keeps a long poem honest.
What poets can take from this
- Map the stanza as abab plus bcbc and plant your turn at the shared b seam, lines four and five.
- Hold one syllable count throughout; the huitain's evenness is part of its character.
- Pick your three rhyme sounds before drafting, and slant them rather than distort your syntax.
- Steal Villon's strategy of the mock bequest; the form thrives on lists that judge as they give.
- For a longer poem, chain huitains with one recurring image so the stanzas read as one testament.
Try it yourself
Write a huitain, ababbcbc, as a mock last will and testament leaving one absurd possession to someone who deserves it. Let the tone turn from comic to tender exactly at the hinge of lines four and five.
Questions
What is the rhyme scheme of a huitain?
The classic huitain rhymes ababbcbc on three rhyme sounds, with all lines in the same measure, typically eight or ten syllables in French. Variants exist, but the doubled b rhyme at the stanza's centre is the signature.
How does a huitain differ from ottava rima?
Both are eight-line stanzas, but ottava rima rhymes ABABABCC and ends with a clinching couplet, while the huitain rhymes ababbcbc and pivots at its middle instead of snapping shut. Their national traditions differ too, Italian versus French.
Who is the most famous huitain poet?
Francois Villon, whose fifteenth century Testament is composed largely of huitains. His mixture of gallows humour, piety, and Paris street life remains the definitive demonstration of the stanza's range.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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