6 The Villanelle: History and Form
“Sometimes for the release of the deepest and most secret feeling, to use a very strict form is a help, because you concentrate on the technical difficulties of mastering the form, and allow the content of the poem a more unconscious and freer release.”
The Villanelle
Lyrical. Memorable. Full of emotion and expressive - a laugh or a cry - the villanelle has roots in the fields sung as an easy melody to make hard work lighter - Modernized and swanky - playful - With a direct tone that can be loose and feathery are terse, abrupt- the villanelle describes lovesickness and yearning - loss and burning - freeing - releasing - A fixed form - full of complexity and simplicity at once ~
The Villanelle: The History and the Form
"Villanelle" comes from the Latin villa, meaning country house or farm and the Italian word villano meaning peasant.
I have heard that the form was first realized by the French poet Jean Passerat who while taking a walking tour in Italy was charmed by the songs sung in the field by harvesters as they worked. Inspired, we he returned to his home in France, he penned the first villanelle: “
Though simple, the form is strict and there are a lot of parameters for a villanelle to be a villanelle.
The poem is always written in nineteen lines with six stanzas. The first five stanzas are written as tercets with an ABA rhyme scheme and the last stanza is written as a quatrain with an ABAA rhyme scheme. The poem also has two refrains. The first line of the first stanza repeats as the last line of stanzas two and four and line three of stanza six. The third line of the first stanza repeats as the last lines of stanzas three and five and the last line in stanza six.
A1 b A2 - Lines in first tercet.
a b A1 - Lines in second tercet.
a b A2 - Lines in third tercet.
a b A1 - Lines in fourth tercet.
a b A2 - Lines in fifth tercet.
a b A1 A2 - Lines in final quatrain.
Traditionally the meter is in iambic pentameter- 5 feet with 10 beats (syllables) - dah DUM dah DUM dah DUM da DUM da DUM - the sound resounds - that ancient sound that mimics the sound of the heart beating —Think of Theodore Rilke’s “I wake/ to sleep/ and take/ my wak/ing slow” - beautiful! . . . but not all villanelles are written in this meter.
This form is circular and not narrative. And because of this, we can see so very clearly how form affects tone, the attitude of the writer toward the subject or the reader, and mood, the way the writer wants the read to feel. The circular quality created through the refrains allows the writer to express the ongoing nature of thoughts and feelings. That coupled with the iambic pentameter with its rhythm of the heart beating - the vibration of life—calls writers and readers of the form to tune in to their own feelings - Like lyric poetry, this form often addresses deeply personal ideas like - loss - or love.
I have read that it was not a highly regarded style in Passart’s day: his peers thought it quaint but not important, and it wasn’t even published until after Passerat’s death in 1606. With this publication, it became popular and was often read aloud in social settings. In time — a lot of time, in fact exactly three hundred years later in 1906, Passerat’s poem of the turtledove was first published in English. Of interest to note, this was not the first villanelle to be published in English. In the late 1800s’ in England, French poetry became popular. One of the first in England to use the form was Oscar Wilde, who wrote “Theocritus: A Villanelle.” Since this time, many highly respected poets have turned to this form including Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, Dylan Thomas, and Sylvia Plath.
“Some of the finest poets have turned to the villanelle.”
Resources
Bloom, Harold. The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost. First, Harper Collins, 2004.
Boland, Eavan, and Mark Strand. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. Reprint, W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.
Poetic Meter and Poetic Form by Fussell (1-Jan-1979) Paperback. Revised, McGraw-Hill Higher Education; Revised edition edition (1 Jan. 1979), 1979.
Questions
What do you know about villanelles?
Have you ever read or listened to a villanelle?
Do you have a favorite villanelle?
Have you ever written a villanelle?
If you were to write a villanelle, what words would you repeat?