All forms of poetry are challenging for distinct reasons. While the sonnet may be hard due to its iambic pentameter, and the sestina for its word repetition, the villanelle is complex in its pattern of recurring lines and in its often elegiac tone. Like colours to a painter, forms to a poet add to the available palette of possibilities.
The Origins of the Villanelle
The Villanelle began to be written and sung in Italy but was popularized in France in the sixteenth century. Originally the villanelle was composed around pastoral themes and a consistent refrain. By the seventeenth century, the poem had two rhyme sets and dual refrains that revolved around a more varied set of subject matter. At that time, the number of tercets could be unlimited as long as the last stanza was a quatrain.
The Villanelle and its Structure
The English version of the villanelle came to be written in the nineteenth century. The villanelle then began to be limited to six stanzas. The first five stanzas are tercets and the sixth is a quatrain. The meter and syllable count is regular but not prescribed. The first and third lines in the initial stanza are repeated as the last lines in the next four stanzas, alternating between the first and third. In the fourth stanza, the last two lines are the repeated refrain lines in the order of first and then third.
Thus, the pattern could be written as A1BA2/ABA1/ABA2/ABA1/ABA2/ABA1A2 with A1 and A2 representing the refrain lines, rhymed with each other through their end word. Rather than just repeating the lines monotonously, the villanelle must grow in understanding, must develop in subject matter and intent throughout the poem. The tone must vary and the meaning be subtly altered at the end from where the poem began. Any kind of recursive experience surrounding memory, grieving, hope, loss or obsession works well with this form.
A variant on the villanelle is the American form the terzanelle. It has the same number of stanzas but instead of the refrains repeating twice, they repeat once, only in the last quatrain, when lines one and three become lines 2 and 4. Each tercet stanza repeats the second line of the prior stanza as its third line, which creates a terza rima scheme or aba/bcb/cdc and so forth. The terzanelle is less overt in its repetitions than the villanelle and thus creates a more diverse pattern with a less insistent or intense tone.
Catherine Owen - Catherine Owen, MA 2001, has published ten award winning books of poetry/prose. Her writing is lyrical, well-researched and fully ...
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