Write a Villanelle

A villanelle is formal. A villanelle is strict. You may think that it is villainy to be forced to write a villanelle. You may have never heard of a villanelle before! This form of poetry evolved in the late 1800s in appreciation of a French poem written during the Renaissance.


A villanelle is a nineteen-line poem. It includes repeated lines and a strict rhyme scheme. There are only two rhymes represented in the entire poem. There are six stanzas in a villanelle. The first five stanzas have three lines apiece. The final stanza is a quatrain of four lines.


Here is an example of a villanelle:


"The House on the Hill"


By Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)


They are all gone away,


The House is shut and still,


There is nothing more to say.


Through broken walls and gray


The wind blows bleak and shrill:


They are all gone away.


Nor is there one today,


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