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A villanelle is a poetic form which entered English-language poetry in the 1800s from the imitation of French models. This article is a general introduction to French literature For detailed information on French literature in specific historic periods see the separate historical articles in the [1] A villanelle has only two rhyme sounds. This article is about the poetic technique For the form of ice see Rime ice. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. 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 A refrain (from Vulgar Latin refringere, "to repeat" and later from Old French refraindre) is the Line or lines that are A couplet is a pair of lines of verse. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain. A tercet is three lines of Poetry, forming a Stanza or complete poem A quatrain is a Poem, or a Stanza within a poem that consists always of four lines [2]

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. [1] Such songs were associated with the country and were thought to be sung by farmers and shepherds, in contrast to the more complex madrigals associated with sophisticated city and court life. The French word villanelle comes from the Italian word villanella, which derives from the Latin villa (farm) and villano (farmhand); to any poet before the mid-nineteenth century, the word villanelle or villanella would have simply meant country song, with no particular form implied. Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. In music a villanella (plural villanelle &mdash not to be confused with the French poetic form Villanelle) is a form of light Italian secular Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. The modern nineteen-line dual-refrain form of the villanelle derives from nineteenth-century admiration of the only Renaissance poem in that form: a poem about a turtledove by Jean Passerat (1534–1602) titled "Villanelle. Jean Passerat (1534-1602 French political satirist and poet was born at Troyes, on 18 October 1534. "[3] The chief French popularizer of the villanelle form was the nineteenth-century author Théodore de Banville; Banville was led to think that the villanelle was an antique form by Wilhelm Ténint. Théodore Faullain de Banville ( March 14 1823 &ndash March 13 1891) was a French Poet and Writer. Wilhelm Ténint (born 1813 was a minor French Romantic writer [4]

Contents

The Penal

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. Edmund William Gosse ( September 21, 1849 &ndash May 16, 1928) was an English Poet, author and critic the son of Philip Théodore Faullain de Banville ( March 14 1823 &ndash March 13 1891) was a French Poet and Writer. " Gosse, Austin Dobson, Oscar Wilde, and Edwin Arlington Robinson were among the first English practitioners. Henry Austin Dobson ( January 18, 1840 &ndash September 2, 1921) was an English Poet and essayist Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900 was an Irish Playwright, Novelist, poet and Author of Edwin Arlington Robinson ( December 22, 1869 &ndash April 6, 1935) was an American Poet, who won three Pulitzer 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. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 &ndash 13 January 1941 was an Irish expatriate writer widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce 's literary Alter ego, as well as the Protagonist of his first semi-autobiographical novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical Novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist 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. Sir William Empson ( 27 September 1906 – 15 April 1984) was an English Literary critic Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973 ˈwɪstən ˈhjuː ˈɔːdən who signed his works W Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953 was a Welsh poet who wrote exclusively in English Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night" is perhaps the most renowned villanelle of all. Do not go gentle into that good night, a Villanelle composed in 1951 is considered to be among the finest works by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953 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. Theodore Huebner Roethke (ˈrɛtkə RET-keh) May 25]] 1908 &ndash August 1 1963) was an American Poet, who published several volumes Sylvia Plath (October 27 1932 &ndash February 11 1963 was an American Poet, Novelist and Short story Writer. Elizabeth Bishop ( February 8, 1911 &ndash October 6, 1979) was an American Poet and Writer from Worcester The villanelle reached an unprecedented level of popularity in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise of the New Formalism. New Formalism is a late-twentieth and early twenty-first century movement in American poetry that has promoted a return to metrical and Rhymed verse Since then, many contemporary poets (for instance, John M. Ford) have written villanelles, and they have often varied the form in innovative ways. John Milo "Mike" Ford ( April 10, 1957 &ndash September 25, 2006) was an American Science fiction and Fantasy

Form

The villanelle has no established meter, although most nineteenth-century villanelles have used trimeter or tetrameter and most twentieth-century villanelles have used pentameter. In Poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line&mdashexample When here // the spring // we see Fresh green // upon In Poetry, a tetrameter is a line of four metrical feet. The particular foot of course can vary as follows Anapestic tetrameter: In Poetry, a pentameter is a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet. 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

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.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The full text is available at Poets.org.

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ a b Kane, Julie. John Milo "Mike" Ford ( April 10, 1957 &ndash September 25, 2006) was an American Science fiction and Fantasy "The Myth of the Fixed-Form Villanelle". Modern Language Quarterly 64. 4 (2003): 427-43.
  2. ^ Preminger, Alex (1993). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691032718.  
  3. ^ French, Amanda. "The First Villanelle: A New Translation of Jean Passerat's 'J'ay perdu ma tourterelle' (1574)." Meridian 12 (2003): 30-37.
  4. ^ French, Amanda. "Refrain, Again: The Return of the Villanelle". Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2004.

Dictionary

villanelle

-noun

  1. (poetry) a type of poetry, consisting of five tercets and one quatrain, with only two rhymes.
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