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VILLANELLE

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 74 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VILLANELLE , a See also:

form of See also:verse, originally loose in construction, but since the 16th See also:century See also:bound in exact limits of an arbitrary See also:kind. The word is ultimately derived from the Latin See also:villa, a See also:country See also:house or See also:farm, through the See also:Italian villano, a See also:peasant or farm See also:hand, and a villanelle was primarily a See also:round See also:song taken up by men on a farm. The Spaniards called such a song a villancejo or villancete or a villancico, and a See also:man who improvised villanelles was a villanciquero. The villanelle was a See also:pastoral poem made to accompany a rustic See also:dance, and from the first it was necessary that it should contain a See also:regular See also:system of repeated lines. The old See also:French villanelles, however, were irregular in form. One of the most celebrated, the " Rosette, pour un peu d'See also:absence " of Philippe See also:Desportes (1545-1606), is a sort of See also:ballade, and those contained in the Astree of d'Utfe, 1610, are scarcely less unlike the villanelles of See also:modern times. It appears, indeed, to have been by an See also:accident that the See also:special and rigorously defined form of the villanelle was invented. In the See also:posthumous poems of See also:Jean See also:Passerat (1534-16o2), which were printed in 16o6, several villanelles were discovered, in different forms. One of these became, and has remained, so deservedly popular, that it has given its exact See also:character to the subsequent See also:history of the villanelle. This famous poem runs as follows: " J'ai perdu ma tourterelle: Est-ce point See also:celle See also:clue j'oi? Je veux alter See also:apt-es elle. Tu regrettes to femelle?

Helas! aussi fais-je moi: J'ai perdu ma tourterelle. Si ton amour est fidele, Aussi est ferme ma foi: Je veux alter apres elle. Ta plainte se renouvelle? Toujours plaindre je me dois: J'ai perdu ma tourterelle. En ne voyant plus la belle Plus rien de beau je ne vois: Je veux aller apres elle. Mort, que tant de fois j'appelle, Prends ce qui se See also:

donne a toi: J'ai perdu ma tourterelle, Je veux aller apres elle." This exquisite lyric has continued to be the type of its class, and the villanelle, therefore, for the last three See also:hundred years has been a poem, written in tercets, on two rhymes, the first and the third See also:line being repeated alternatively in each tercet. It is usual to confine the villanelle to five tercets, but that is not essential; it must, however, See also:close with a See also:quatrain, the last two lines of which are the first and third line of the See also:original tercet. The villanelle was extremely admired by the French poets of the Parnasse, and one of them, See also:Theodore de See also:Banville, compared it to a ribband of See also:silver and See also:gold traversed by a See also:thread of See also:rose-See also:colour. Boulmier, who was the first to point out that Passerat was the inventor of the definite villanelle, published collections of these poems in 1878 and 1879, and was preparing another when he died in 1881. When, in 1877, so many of the See also:early French forms of verse were introduced, or reintroduced, into See also:English literature, the villanelle attracted a See also:great See also:deal of See also:attention; it was simultaneously cultivated by W. E. See also:Henley, See also:Austin See also:Dobson, See also:Lang and See also:Gosse.

Henley wrote a large number, and he described the form itself in a specimen beginning: " A dainty thing's the Villanelle, Sly, musical, a See also:

jewel in See also:rhyme, It serves its purpose passing well." It has since then been very frequently used by English and See also:American poets. There are several excellent examples in English of humorous villanelles, especially those by Austin Dobson and by Henley. See See also:Joseph Boulmier, See also:Les Villanelles (See also:Paris, 1878; 2nd enlarged edition, 1879). (E. G.

End of Article: VILLANELLE

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