Décima
ten-line stanza of poetry
A décima is a ten-line stanza of poetry. The most popular form is called décima espinela after Vicente Espinel (1550–1624), a Spanish writer, poet, and musician from the Spanish Golden Age who used it extensively throughout his compositions.
The décima deals with a wide range of subject matters, including themes that are philosophical, religious, lyrical, and political. Humorous décimas would typically satirize an individual's weakness or foolish act. A decimero would frequently challenge the target of the satire or his/her defender to respond in kind with a décima, thereby setting up a duel that tests the originality and wit of contending composers.
Styles
Latin America and Spain
The décima in all Latin America and in Spain is a style of poetry that is octosyllabic and has 10 lines to the stanza. The espinela rhyming scheme (
A
B
B
A
A
C
C
D
D
C
{\displaystyle \mathrm {ABBAACCDDC} }
) is the de facto scheme in use. It is spoken, sung and written throughout Latin America with variations in different countries. It is often improvised.
Each country has its own melody and tone ("tonada") and a different instrument, but the style and structure are exactly the same.
“Décima” enters the record as ten-line stanza of poetry. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Décima, ten-line and stanza can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1207406. The Library of Congress control number is sh85036194. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1550 and 1624.
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This entry incorporates text from “Décima” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.