noun
- a poetic form consisting of nineteen lines with only two rhymes throughout, composed of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain
Usage: poetry
Examples
- Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ is perhaps the most famous villanelle in English literature.
- The villanelle’s strict form makes it one of the most challenging poetic structures to master.
- She spent weeks crafting her villanelle, carefully selecting the two refrains that would repeat throughout the poem.
- The professor assigned the class to write a villanelle about nature.
- Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘One Art’ demonstrates how a skilled poet can make the villanelle form seem effortless.
- The repetitive structure of the villanelle creates a hypnotic, almost obsessive quality in the poem.