Villanelle
Encyclopedia
A villanelle is a poetic
form that entered English-language poetry in the 19th century from the imitation of French
models. The word derives from the Italian villanella from Latin villanus (rustic). A villanelle has only two rhyme
sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza
are rhyming refrain
s that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet
at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercet
s and one concluding quatrain
. Because of its non-linear structure, the villanelle resists narrative development. Villanelles do not tell a story or establish a conversational tone. In music, the villanelle is a dance form, accompanied by sung lyrics or an instrumental piece based on this dance form.
associated with sophisticated city and court life. The French word villanelle comes from the Italian
word villanella
, which derives from the Latin
villa (house) and villano (farmhand); to any poet before the mid-19th century, the word villanelle or villanella would have simply meant country song, with no particular form implied. The modern nineteen-line dual-refrain form of the villanelle derives from 19th-century admiration of the only Renaissance poem in that form: a poem about a turtledove titled "Villanelle" by Jean Passerat
(1534–1602). The chief French popularizer of the villanelle form was the 19th-century author Théodore de Banville
; Banville was led by Wilhelm Ténint
to think that the villanelle was an antique form.
Although the villanelle is usually labeled "a French form", by far the majority of villanelles are in English. Edmund Gosse
, influenced by Théodore de Banville
, was the first English writer to praise the villanelle and bring it into fashion with his 1877 essay "A Plea for Certain Exotic Forms of Verse". Gosse, Austin Dobson
, Oscar Wilde
, and Edwin Arlington Robinson
were among the first English practitioners. Most modernists disdained the villanelle, which became associated with the overwrought formal aestheticism of the 1890s; i.e. the decadent movement in England. James Joyce
included a villanelle ostensibly written by his adolescent fictional alter-ego Stephen Dedalus
in his 1914 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
, probably to show the immaturity of Stephen's literary abilities. William Empson
revived the villanelle more seriously in the 1930s, and his contemporaries and friends W. H. Auden
and Dylan Thomas
also picked up the form. Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night
" is perhaps the most renowned villanelle of all. Theodore Roethke
and Sylvia Plath
wrote villanelles in the 1950s and 1960s, and Elizabeth Bishop
wrote a particularly famous and influential villanelle, "One Art", in 1976. The villanelle reached an unprecedented level of popularity in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of the New Formalism
. Since then, many contemporary poets have written villanelles, and they have often varied the form in innovative ways.
or tetrameter
and most 20th-century villanelles have used pentameter
. The essence of the fixed modern form is its distinctive pattern of rhyme and repetition. The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of the villanelle can be schematized as A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2 where letters ("a" and "b") indicate the two rhyme sounds, upper case indicates a refrain ("A"), and superscript numerals (1 and 2) indicate Refrain 1 and Refrain 2.
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
form that entered English-language poetry in the 19th century from the imitation of French
French literature
French literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than French. Literature written in French language, by citizens...
models. The word derives from the Italian villanella from Latin villanus (rustic). A villanelle has only two rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
are rhyming refrain
Refrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
s that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercet
Tercet
A tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem. English-language haiku is an example of an unrhymed tercet poem...
s and one concluding quatrain
Quatrain
A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...
. Because of its non-linear structure, the villanelle resists narrative development. Villanelles do not tell a story or establish a conversational tone. In music, the villanelle is a dance form, accompanied by sung lyrics or an instrumental piece based on this dance form.
History
Many published works mistakenly claim that the strict modern form of the villanelle originated with the medieval troubadours, but in fact medieval and Renaissance villanelles were simple ballad-like songs with no fixed form or length. Such songs were associated with the country, and were thought to be sung by farmers and shepherds, in contrast to the more complex madrigalsMadrigal (music)
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....
associated with sophisticated city and court life. The French word villanelle comes from the Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
word villanella
Villanella
In music, a villanella is a form of light Italian secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century...
, which derives from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
villa (house) and villano (farmhand); to any poet before the mid-19th century, the word villanelle or villanella would have simply meant country song, with no particular form implied. The modern nineteen-line dual-refrain form of the villanelle derives from 19th-century admiration of the only Renaissance poem in that form: a poem about a turtledove titled "Villanelle" by Jean Passerat
Jean Passerat
Jean Passerat , French political satirist and poet, was born at Troyes, on 18 October 1534. He studied at the University of Paris, and is said to have had some curious adventures at one time working in a mine...
(1534–1602). The chief French popularizer of the villanelle form was the 19th-century author Théodore de Banville
Théodore de Banville
Théodore Faullain de Banville was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood, by his own account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the...
; Banville was led by Wilhelm Ténint
Wilhelm Ténint
Wilhelm Ténint was a minor French Romantic writer.He was a fervent admirer of Victor Hugo and of the "modern school" of Romantic literature. He published in Parisian literary journals such as La Presse, and was a member of the Société des gens de lettres...
to think that the villanelle was an antique form.
Although the villanelle is usually labeled "a French form", by far the majority of villanelles are in English. Edmund Gosse
Edmund Gosse
Sir Edmund William Gosse CB was an English poet, author and critic; the son of Philip Henry Gosse and Emily Bowes.-Early life:...
, influenced by Théodore de Banville
Théodore de Banville
Théodore Faullain de Banville was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Banville was born in Moulins in Allier, Auvergne, the son of a captain in the French navy. His boyhood, by his own account, was cheerlessly passed at a lycée in Paris; he was not harshly treated, but took no part in the...
, was the first English writer to praise the villanelle and bring it into fashion with his 1877 essay "A Plea for Certain Exotic Forms of Verse". Gosse, Austin Dobson
Henry Austin Dobson
Henry Austin Dobson , commonly Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist.-Life:He was born at Plymouth, the eldest son of George Clarisse Dobson, a civil engineer, of French descent. When he was about eight, the family moved to Holyhead, and his first school was at Beaumaris in Anglesey...
, Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, and Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.- Biography :Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870...
were among the first English practitioners. Most modernists disdained the villanelle, which became associated with the overwrought formal aestheticism of the 1890s; i.e. the decadent movement in England. James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
included a villanelle ostensibly written by his adolescent fictional alter-ego Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographical novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and an important character in Joyce's Ulysses...
in his 1914 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialised in the magazine The Egoist from 1914 to 1915, and published first in book format in 1916 by B. W. Huebsch, New York. The first English edition was published by the Egoist Press in February 1917...
, probably to show the immaturity of Stephen's literary abilities. William Empson
William Empson
Sir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He was known as "燕卜荪" in Chinese.He was widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...
revived the villanelle more seriously in the 1930s, and his contemporaries and friends W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
and Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
also picked up the form. Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night, a villanelle, is considered to be among the finest works by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas . Originally published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, it also appeared as part of the collection "In Country Sleep." Written for his dying father, it is one of...
" is perhaps the most renowned villanelle of all. Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...
and Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
wrote villanelles in the 1950s and 1960s, and Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...
wrote a particularly famous and influential villanelle, "One Art", in 1976. The villanelle reached an unprecedented level of popularity in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of the New Formalism
New Formalism
New Formalism is a late-20th and early 21st century movement in American poetry that has promoted a return to metrical and rhymed verse.-Origins and intentions:...
. Since then, many contemporary poets have written villanelles, and they have often varied the form in innovative ways.
Form
The villanelle has no established meter, although most 19th-century villanelles have used trimeterTrimeter
In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line—example:...
or tetrameter
Tetrameter
Tetrameter: [ti'tramitə]; te·tram·e·ter; a verse of four measuresOrigin: early 17th century : from late Latin tetrametrus, originally neuter from Greek tetrametros 'having four measures,' from tetra- 'four' + metron 'measure'....
and most 20th-century villanelles have used pentameter
Pentameter
Pentameter may refer to:*the iambic pentameter of the modern period*the dactylic pentameter of antiquity...
. The essence of the fixed modern form is its distinctive pattern of rhyme and repetition. The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of the villanelle can be schematized as A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2 where letters ("a" and "b") indicate the two rhyme sounds, upper case indicates a refrain ("A"), and superscript numerals (1 and 2) indicate Refrain 1 and Refrain 2.
- Refrain 1 (A1)
- Line 2 (b)
- Refrain 2 (A2)
- Line 4 (a)
- Line 5 (b)
- Refrain 1 (A1)
- Line 7 (a)
- Line 8 (b)
- Refrain 2 (A2)
- Line 10 (a)
- Line 11 (b)
- Refrain 1 (A1)
- Line 13 (a)
- Line 14 (b)
- Refrain 2 (A2)
- Line 16 (a)
- Line 17 (b)
- Refrain 1 (A1)
- Refrain 2 (A2)
Examples
- Do not go gentle into that good nightDo not go gentle into that good nightDo not go gentle into that good night, a villanelle, is considered to be among the finest works by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas . Originally published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951, it also appeared as part of the collection "In Country Sleep." Written for his dying father, it is one of...
by Dylan ThomasDylan ThomasDylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
. - The Waking by Theodore RoethkeTheodore RoethkeTheodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...
. - Mad Girl's Love SongMad Girl's Love Song (poem)"Mad Girl's Love Song" is a poem written by Sylvia Plath in 1951, while she was a student at Smith College. It is written in the villanelle poetic form and is generally included in the biographical note appended to Plath's novel, The Bell Jar....
by Sylvia PlathSylvia PlathSylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
. - One Art by Elizabeth BishopElizabeth BishopElizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...
. - "If I Could Tell You" by W.H. Auden
- Edwin Arlington RobinsonEdwin Arlington RobinsonEdwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.- Biography :Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870...
's villanelle The House on the Hill was first published in The Globe in September 1894.
- They are all gone away,
- The House is shut and still,
- There is nothing more to say.
- Through broken walls and gray
- The winds blow bleak and shrill.
- They are all gone away.
- Nor is there one to-day
- To speak them good or ill:
- There is nothing more to say.
- Why is it then we stray
- Around the sunken sill?
- They are all gone away,
- And our poor fancy-play
- For them is wasted skill:
- There is nothing more to say.
- There is ruin and decay
- In the House on the Hill:
- They are all gone away,
- There is nothing more to say.
- The villanelle written by Stephen Dedalus, protagonist in Joyce's novel "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", beginning with the line: "Are you not weary of ardent ways..." http://rinabeana.com/poemoftheday/index.php/category/james-joyce/
See also
- Vers de sociétéVers de sociétéVers de société, a term for social or familiar poetry, which was originally borrowed from the French, and has now come to rank as an English expression.-In France:...
- VillanellaVillanellaIn music, a villanella is a form of light Italian secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century...
- ParadelleParadelleA paradelle is a modern poetic form which was invented by United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins as a parody of the villanelle.-Derivation:...
- TerzanelleTerzanelleA terzanelle is a poetic form combining aspects of the villanelle and the terza rima. It is nineteen lines total, with five triplets and a concluding quatrain...
(a villanelle combined with the Terza rimaTerza rimaTerza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three-line rhyme scheme. It was first used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri.-Form:Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D...
) - TercetTercetA tercet is composed of three lines of poetry, forming a stanza or a complete poem. English-language haiku is an example of an unrhymed tercet poem...
- Elizabeth BishopElizabeth BishopElizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...
- Theodore RoethkeTheodore RoethkeTheodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...
- Weldon KeesWeldon KeesHarry Weldon Kees was an American poet, painter, literary critic, novelist, jazz pianist, and short story writer...
- Marilyn HackerMarilyn HackerMarilyn Hacker is an American poet, translator and critic. She is Professor of English at the City College of New York....
- Wendy CopeWendy CopeWendy Cope, OBE is an award-winning contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely with the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.-Biography:...
- Jared CarterJared Carter-Background:Carter studied at Yale and at Goddard College. After military service and travel abroad, he made his home in Indianapolis, where he has lived since 1969...
- Frank Scott
- Fixed Verse Poetry Form
External links
- Description and Examples of the villanelle from a web page for a course taught by poet Alberto Ríos.
- The Villanelle Sandwich
- The Guardian: Poem of the Week May 27, 2008