villanelle

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a nineteen-line poem with five three-line stanzas and a final four-line stanza, using two repeating refrains and two rhymes

   Her villanelle returns to the same haunting line at each refrain.

Borrowed from French villanelle, from Italian villanella, originally a rustic song or dance. That word derives from villano, 'peasant' or 'rustic person,' ultimately from Latin villa, 'country estate.' The name was later applied to the fixed nineteen-line poetic form.

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