villanelle

[vil-uh-nel]

noun

Prosody.

1. a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes.

villanelle

/ ˌvɪləˈnɛl /

noun

1. a verse form of French origin consisting of 19 lines arranged in five tercets and a quatrain. The first and third lines of the first tercet recur alternately at the end of each subsequent tercet and both together at the end of the quatrain

Word History and Origins

Origin of villanelle¹

1580–90; < French < Italian; villanella, -elle

Word History and Origins

Origin of villanelle¹

C16: from French, from Italian _villanella

Example Sentences

We love a good sonnet, acrostic or villanelle.

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Elizabeth Bishop’s wrenching villanelle, “One Art,” can be seen this way.

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In “Missing Dates,” a haunting villanelle about helpless love and despair, William Empson writes: “Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills./ The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.”

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Her own verse often drew on classical forms such as the villanelle, sestina, tritina and sonnet, and sometimes incorporated references to ancient mythology and medieval legend.

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“It was almost like working within a received form, like a sonnet or a villanelle, to write into the context of the script,” he said.

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Related Words

• ballad 
• composition 
• epic 
• lyric 
• poetry 
• rhyme 
• sonnet 
• verse 
• writing