A stanza is a series of lines grouped together in order to divide a poem; the structure of a stanza is often (though not always) repeated throughout the poem. Stanzas are separated from other stanzas by line breaks.

Do stanzas contain lines?

A stanza is a group of lines that form the basic metrical unit in a poem. So, in a 12-line poem, the first four lines might be a stanza. You can identify a stanza by the number of lines it has and its rhyme scheme or pattern, such as A-B-A-B. There are many different types of stanzas.

How many lines are in a stanza?

Like lines, there is no set length to a stanza or an insistence that all stanzas within a poem need be the same length. However, there are names for stanzas of certain lengths: two-line stanzas are couplets; three-lines, tercets; four-lines, quatrains. (Rarer terms, like sixains and quatorzains, are very rarely used.)