Villanelle — Definition, Form, and Examples
What is a villanelle?
A villanelle is a poetic form that follows a strict structure, including a simplistic rhyme scheme and repeating lines in an alternative pattern. Despite its strict form, eight of the 19 lines are repeated, meaning the poem only needs 13 unique lines.
Originally, the villanelle was meant to mimic an Italian villanella, a dance song. The poems initially focused on content related to the pastoral, which explores the desire to withdraw from modern life and escape to the countryside, where life is considered more simplistic. Since its origin, poets have not limited themselves to focusing on the pastoral in a villanelle.
The first villanelles did not have a fixed form, but Renaissance poet Jean Passerat’s “Villanelle,” or “J’ay perdu ma tourterelle,” popularized the form in English poems.
Villanelle form
The verse form of a villanelle has 19 lines, 6 stanzas, a specific rhyme scheme, and a couplet.
Lines: There are 19 lines in a villanelle. The first and third lines in the first stanza repeat throughout the poem. Line 1 repeats as the last lines of stanzas 2 and 4 and the second to last line of the poem (lines 6, 12, and 18). Line 3 repeats as the last lines of stanzas 3 and 5 and the poem’s last line (lines 9, 15, and 19).
Stanzas: There are a total of six stanzas in a villanelle. The first five stanzas are tercets (3 lines) and the sixth stanza is a quatrain (4 lines).
Rhyme Scheme: Each of the five tercets has a rhyming pattern of ABA; the final quatrain’s rhyming pattern is ABAA.
Rhythm (Meter): Although there is no set rhythmic pattern for a villanelle, many poets use iambic pentameter, which consists of five sets of unstressed and stressed syllables, giving each line 10 total syllables.
Couplet: The last stanza incorporates a final couplet (two consecutive lines that rhyme), repeating the first and third lines.
One of the more well-known examples of the villanelle form is Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.” The following identifies the aspects of the poem that qualify it as a villanelle:
Tercet 1
(1) Do not go gentle into that good night, (A)
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; (B)
(2) Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (A)
Tercet 2
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, (A)
Because their words had forked no lightning they (B)
(1) Do not go gentle into that good night. (A)
Tercet 3
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright (A)
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, (B)
(2) Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (A)
Tercet 4
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, (A)
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, (B)
(1) Do not go gentle into that good night. (A)
Tercet 5
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight (A)
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, (B)
(2) Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (A)
Quatrain
And you, my father, there on the sad height, (A)
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. (B)
(1) Do not go gentle into that good night. (A)
(2) Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (A)
Villanelle poem examples
The following poems utilize the villanelle form:
“Theocritus” by Oscar Wilde
O Singer of Persephone!
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O singer of Persephone!
Simaetha calls on Hecate
And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still by the light and laughing sea
Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate:
O Singer of Persephone!
And still in boyish rivalry
Young Daphnis challenges his mate:
Dost thou remember Sicily?
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
For thee the jocund shepherds wait,
O Singer of Persephone!
Dost thou remember Sicily?
“Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath
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.)
“One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.