Villanelle
A nineteen-line form built on two repeating refrains.
About the Villanelle
The villanelle is a nineteen-line poem whose two refrains cycle through five tercets and a closing quatrain, accumulating force through repetition. The form's signature is the way meaning shifts each time the refrains return, the same lines saying something different by the end of the poem.
Structure
Five three-line stanzas (tercets) followed by a four-line stanza (quatrain), nineteen lines total. Two refrains, the first and third lines of the opening tercet, alternate as the final line of each subsequent tercet, then close the poem as the final two lines of the quatrain. Rhyme scheme: ABA across all tercets, ABAA for the quatrain.
Villanelle
A1 and A2 are the two refrains
A Short History
- 1500sBegins as a rustic dance-song in Italy and Spain.
- 1606Jean Passerat's "J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle" is published.
- Late 1800sFrench and English poets fix it at nineteen lines.
- 1951Dylan Thomas publishes Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.
- TodayBishop's One Art (1976) keeps it a favorite.
Famous Villanelles
- 01"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"Dylan Thomas
- 02"One Art"Elizabeth Bishop
- 03"The Waking"Theodore Roethke
Questions About the Villanelle
The things people ask most, answered in a sentence or two.