_____ _ __ ___ _ _ _ _
|_ _| |__ ___ \ \ / (_) | | __ _ _ __ ___| | | ___
| | | '_ \ / _ \ \ \ / /| | | |/ _` | '_ \ / _ \ | |/ _ \
| | | | | | __/ \ V / | | | | (_| | | | | __/ | | __/
|_| |_| |_|\___| \_/ |_|_|_|\__,_|_| |_|\___|_|_|\___|
~~~~~~~~~~~~ a meditation on form and obsession ~~~~~~~~~~~~
The villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with a strict form: five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by a quatrain (four-line stanza). It uses only two rhymes throughout the entire poem, and features two refrains that alternate and then combine at the end.
Capital letters indicate rhyme scheme; A1 and A2 are the refrains:
The villanelle's power lies in its obsession. The same lines return again and again, like a thought you cannot escape, a grief you cannot release, a love you cannot forget. The best villanelles use this obsessive quality to match their content—Dylan Thomas's refusal to accept death, Elizabeth Bishop's meditation on loss.
The form originated in Italy as a light pastoral song (the word comes from "villano," meaning peasant). French poets formalized its structure in the 16th century. But it was English-language poets of the 20th century—Thomas, Bishop, Roethke, Plath—who transformed it into a vehicle for serious emotional exploration.