Monday One Stop Poetry Form - Villanelle

Welcome to One Stop Poetry Form

We want to encourage you to explore different poetry forms over the weeks and months to come. We will spend the first "session" describing the poetic form and the second week will be a time for the individual poet to do exercises with the form and an experienced poet. Please have fun and remember we are learning together!

For the  next two weeks of  Poetry Form I , Claudia Schönfeld ,would like to introduce you to one of my favorite Poetry forms - the Villanelle.

Are you ready for an excursion to the past with some history and background, for some technical details (no worries - it's not going to be too technical - I'm a very non-technical person myself...), and lastly are you ready to get inspired to try a Villanelle yourself?

Villanelles have a long history

The word “villanelle” comes from the Italian villano (“peasant”) and means "country song".
Originally it was a dance song sung by a Renaissance troubadour with no particular form.
So this means, the first Villanelles were written in italian language. 

The structure we know today took shape after Jean Passerat’s famous 16th century Villanelle, “J’ai perdu ma tourtourelle” (“I Have Lost My Turtle Dove”)

Villanelles appeared in English poetry around 1800.

Today's Villanelles still follow this unique, yet repetitive, rhyme pattern from the 16th century which lends a haunted quality to the Narrative Voice.

Here's a translation of Jean Passerat 's Villanelle from the 16th century (originally written in French.)

I Have Lost My Turtle Dove 
by Jean Passerat

I have lost my turtledove:
Isn’t that her gentle coo?
I will go and find my love.

Here you mourn your mated love;
Oh, God–I am mourning too:
I have lost my turtledove.

If you trust your faithful dove,
Trust my faith is just as true;
I will go and find my love.

Plaintively you speak your love;
All my speech is turned into
“I have lost my turtledove.”

Such a beauty was my dove,
Other beauties will not do;
I will go and find my love.

Death, again entreated of,
Take one who is offered you:
I have lost my turtledove;
I will go and find my love.

The Structure of Villanelle

Villanelles have a rhyme - a rhythm and a structure...

What I love about Villanelles is their musicality; they have a beat - they grip you - they rock you like waves in an ocean and they will worm their way inside your mind and heart because of their rhythm.
It seldom happens to me that I remember the lines of my free verse poems exactly, but I often remember the lines of my Villanelles because they feel more like a song than a poem.

A Villanelle consists of six stanzas with a total of 19 lines ( first five stanzas with three lines each and last stanza with four lines) this structure hasn't changed since 1600..

Villanelles are usually written in 

tetrameter (a line containing four beats/stresses)
Example:

                 A  life like colored drops of rain

Beats:             1            2            3          4 

or

pentameter (a line containing five beats/stresses)
Example:

               Do not go gentle into that good night,

Beats:             1         2       3     4               5


There are two refrains throughout the entire villanelle (A1 and A2) and each of them appears four times - so they should be chosen carefully because they form the backbone of the piece. Think of a refrain like the chorus that is repeated in a song.

Example: How the refrains and rhymes work:

Do not go gentle into that good night,  (A1 - appears 4 times - has to rhyme with A2 and a)
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;  (b - appears once & has only to rhyme with the other b's)
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  (A2 - appears 4 times - has to rhyme with A1 and a)

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,  (a - appears only once & has to rhyme with A1+A2)
Because their words had forked no lightning they  (b)
Do not go gentle into that good night.  (A1 - this is the second repetition of A1 in the first line)
 

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)
 

Two Famous Villanelles

House on the Hill
by American Poet Edwin Arlington (1869 - 1935)

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.

Mad Girl's Love Song
by American Poet Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963)

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
 
I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
 
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

--------

I guess by now you almost can’t wait to start writing?
Got your pen ready and sharpened?
Give it a try, write your first or hundredth Villanelle and link up with us.

Review ~ Writing the Villanelle

• Think about the meter – tetrameter or pentameter (others are possible as well)

• Once you have decided on a meter, try to feel the beat - does it flow?

• Do the lines read with a good rhythm in four/five beats? It’s a good idea to speak the lines out while writing/editing, maybe even tap the beat with your feet to make sure they count the number of stresses/beats you've decided on.

• Choose your Refrains carefully – they form the backbone of your piece

• Make sure the lines end with a word which rhymes easily

• You can use online rhyme tools like rhymezone.com to find rhyming words

• Think about a topic you would like to write about – but don’t be too focused – let it flow and allow the rhythm, your emotions and the words to drag you

• Have the structure right in front of you – I usually copy the structure to a page and then write like this..

Example:

Refrain 1 (A1)     Do not go gentle into that good night,
Line 2 (b)            Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Refrain 2 (A2)     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

..and so on...

Next week we may pick some Villanelles as examples and have a closer look, done by an expert who will also share some of his personal experience and knowledge.