Format: Villanelle (Pt. 1 of 2)

[jjhunter]

I'm taking a leaf out of ysabetwordsmith's book and splitting my post about the villanelle format into two. In this post, I'll give a brief historical overview of the format, offer a historical example, and provide links for further readings. In the next post, I'll use one of my own villanelles as the basis for discussing what I personally have found challenging, and occasionally satisfying, about writing in this format.

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The French are to blame for the villanelle. Or, more specifically, minor nineteenth French poet Wilhelm Ténint is responsible for accidentally turning a single obscure sixteenth century poem into an entire 'Renaissance form' that his contemporary Théodore de Banville then 'revived' and popularized. The form hopped the channel - and the language barrier - from French to English in 1877 with Edmund Gosse's "A Plea for Certain Exotic Forms of Verse", and has essentially never looked back since.

In English, the villanelle consists of five stanzas of three rhyming lines (i.e. five tercets) and a concluding four line stanza (i.e. a quatrain). So far, so similar to other interlocking forms like the terza rima. What distinguishes the villanelle is that, of a total of nineteen lines, a full six lines are alternating repeats of the first and third lines. This 'dual refrain' can be powerful, but it requires two brilliant lines that play off each other well.

Here's the first stanza of a modern example from the January 2012 issue of Poetry:

After a Greek Proverb by A.E. Stallings:

We’re here for the time being, I answer to the query—
Just for a couple of years, we said, a dozen years back.
Nothing is more permanent than the temporary.

[...]

If we summarize the villanelle format like this

A1bA2 abA1 abA2 abA1 abA2 abA1A2

then the remainder of the poem is written such that

A1 = "We’re here for the time being, I answer to the query—"
b = line ending in word that rhymes with 'back'
A2 = "Nothing is more permanent than the temporary."
a = line ending in word that rhymes with 'query' / 'temporary'

Note that the final stanza, that abA1A2 quatrain, ends in those two alternating lines placed one right after the other.


Here's another example, one whose copyright is a bit more permissive:


Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas

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.

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Discussion:
- Do you have a particular favorite villanelle you'd care to share?
- Have you ever written one yourself?
- What might be so appealing about the villanelle format that has allowed it to arise and persist under such unlikely circumstances?

Further Reading:
Refrain Again: The Return of the Villanelle by Amanda French (text available for free online; I highly recommend it!)
Villanelle at 'Forms of Verse'
Villanelle on Wikipedia
Villanelle at 'Poetry Through the Ages'
Villanelle at 'Representative Poetry Online'


Villanelle examples at Poetry Foundation
2010 Poetry Form Challenge #19 Villanelle

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Format: Villanelle (Pt. 2 of 2)

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Comments

[lnhammer]

I write the occasional villanelle, but I can't say I've been entirely successful with any of them. From my own observations, it requires an obsessive topic to work well -- only a different kind of obsessiveness than for a sestina. Certain kinds of love poetry or, oddly, philosophical speculations seem ideal for the form -- topics that want things to be restated, rather than returned to in a different form as with a sestina. Also in contrast to sestinas, it is very hard to get any sort of narrative going, whereas sestinas seem to work particularly well for stories of the exact right size for the shape.

I think I prefer sonnets, as more flexible for my purposes.

---L.

[jjhunter]

All excellent points. I'll be elaborating on this more in the followup post, but I find that it makes a surprisingly big difference for the overall effect of the poem whether the post feels comfortable varying the refrain lines. When the poet is not, yes, definitely, philosophical unpacking or an obsessive circling flow is very apt; when the poet is comfortable making minute changes, then I tend to see poems that look to surprise the reader in some way or overturn expectations, that build their force on repeating, repeating, repeating and then finally changing the repetition such that the poem breaks out of that obsessive cycle into new territory.

I would love to hear more about your thoughts on sonnets - it's not a format that I've used myself.

[lnhammer]

Sonnets are good for an amount of content that's of a certain size (without too much padding or compression) with a binary structure (such as question and response). "How much?" you ask -- and I can't answer that in words. Write a few on different topics, taking note of how much you have to struggle to fill out or stuff your words into the form. Eventually you'll get a sense of how much content you can pour into that 14-line bottle.

The binary structure is, of course, because without that 8+6 structure around a volta (or 12+2 with a summary couplet) it's not a sonnet. The exact rhyme scheme is irrelevant, and anyone who insists that there's only 2 (or 3) valid ones is talking out their hat -- poets have varied the schema to suit their needs since the second one ever written. But without that turn, it's simply some 14-line poem in some other, non-sonnet form.

---L.