Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A 19-line poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A poem in a fixed form borrowed from the French, and allied to the virelay.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A poem written in tercets with but two rhymes, the first and third verse of the first stanza alternating as the third verse in each successive stanza and forming a couplet at the close.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun poetry a type of
poetry , consisting of fivetercets and onequatrain , with only tworhymes .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The above villanelle is simply a whiny complaint, composed in boredom, regarding my inability to support myself solely through my keyboard.
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The villanelle is a nineteen-line poem made up of five triplets with a closing quatrain.
LearnHub Activities 2008
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Jamais Hylas ne changera, the two last being the continuous refrain of a "villanelle" in which this bad man boasts his constancy in inconstancy.
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 From the Beginning to 1800 George Saintsbury 1889
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The country would be a better and happier place if no one could hold a government job above GS-9 without having produced a tolerable sonnet (a villanelle for positions involving complex issues) or a readable rendition of a hundred lines of Latin, Greek or Italian literature.
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You get the feeling that, like the villanelle or sestina, concrete poetry is now something that poets try their hand at as a demonstration of their virtuosity rather than a poetic tactic or affinity.
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The poem was a beautifully constructed villanelle, however, had little meaning.
How to Make Your Writing Matter to Your Readers | Write to Done 2009
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The country would be a better and happier place if no one could hold a government job above GS-9 without having produced a tolerable sonnet (a villanelle for positions involving complex issues) or a readable rendition of a hundred lines of Latin, Greek or Italian literature.
Stromata Blog 2010
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Educated at Amherst and later at Harvard, he served in the U.S. Army during World War II, first as a cryptographer and then in combat, shocking experiences that became the source for the early villanelle "First Snow in Alsace" and the recent "Terza Rima."
A Great Living Poet's Rare Art of Reticence Richard B. Woodward 2011
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The country would be a better and happier place if no one could hold a government job above GS-9 without having produced a tolerable sonnet (a villanelle for positions involving complex issues) or a readable rendition of a hundred lines of Latin, Greek or Italian literature.
Stromata Blog: 2010
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You get the feeling that, like the villanelle or sestina, concrete poetry is now something that poets try their hand at as a demonstration of their virtuosity rather than a poetic tactic or affinity.
milosrdenstvi commented on the word villanelle
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(IMO the only good villanelle ever written.)
December 8, 2010
ruzuzu commented on the word villanelle
But it's such a delicious word--vanilla and villainy all in one!
December 8, 2010