Villanelle (poem form)
The Villanelle (from Italian villano "rural", "peasant", from Mittellat. Villanus) is a form of poetry that emerged in France in the 16th century, based on the bucolic art song composed in Italy (especially Naples) in the 15th century , which, without having a fixed form, took up themes from rural life. In the French form, the Villanelle usually consists of 5 terzets (three lines), which alternately repeat the first and third lines as a refrain and conclude with a quartet (four lines) that brings together two chorus lines at the end.
The scheme for this (A 1 and A 2 are the refrain lines) is:
[A 1 b A 2 ]
[from A 1 ]
[from A 2 ]
[from A 1 ]
[from A 2 ]
[from A 1 A 2 ]
The form was introduced into German poetry by Jakob Regnart in the 16th century, where it usually consists of three-line stanzas with three rhymes (aaa / bbb etc.), which, however, found little successor in Germany.
An example of an English-language Villanelle is the poem Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas .
Web links
Examples of Villanelles:
- "J'ay perdu ma tourterelle" by Jean Passerat
- "Theocritus - A Villanelle" by Oscar Wilde
- "One art" by Elizabeth Bishop
- "Newe Teutsche Lieder" by Jakob Regnart (digitized version)
- Villanelle in children's and youth literature
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. Otto Knörrich: Lexicon of lyrical forms (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 479). 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-47902-8 , pp. 252f.