The Villanelle

The Villanelle

What is it? And how to do it.

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Tuscany. Photo by Pat Whelen

The Villanelle is a fixed poetic form, with a specific structure. It is nineteen lines long, and comprises six stanzas. Verses one to five have three lines (‘tercets’). Verse six has four lines (a ‘quatrain’).

Lines one and three of the first verse are particularly important. They are repeated as a kind of refrain throughout the poem. Line one is repeated at the end of the second and fourth verses, line three at the end of the third and fifth. Both are repeated together as the final two lines of the whole poem (the last two lines of verse six).

The form originated in France out of traditional songs in the pastoral genre. The name derives from the Italian word ‘villano’, meaning peasant (‘villein’). The repeated lines act as a sort of chanted chorus.

There are two particularly interesting features. First, there is the way in which the poem may seek to build emotional intensity across the verses. Second, the changing context of the two repeated lines can be used to draw out different nuances of meaning from the same text. To achieve this, minor variations in the repeated lines are permitted.

There are two rhymes. The tercets rhyme ABA. The quatrain at the end rhymes ABAA. I find myself using iambic pentameter which feels right for the form.

Perhaps the most famous example of a villanelle is Dylan Thomas’ ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’. But the finest example is surely Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mad girl’s love song’, which is breathtaking.

A recent villanelle of mine, published in Lit Up, describes the onset of bad weather as night falls in the fishing town of Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders. The poem seeks to use the form to build a picture of an intensifying storm, which breaks in verse five, before the lull in verse six.

You can find the poem here: ‘Storm’.

Another of my villanelles tells the story of a life, and of how our dreams help us to keep going. The first tercet sets the scene. The next four take us through childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and middle age. The final quatrain is a reflective ‘looking back on life’ stanza, seen from the perspective of old age.

You can find that poem here: ‘Hourglass’

I have a word template that helps me build a villanelle. It’s nothing special, but it helps keep track of the rhyming pattern and the repeated lines. I could send it to you if you’d like! Just drop me a line…

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