One of my oft-expounded beliefs about art is that form matters. The restrictions of form inspire invention.
There was a time when a painter would be commissioned to paint, say, an altarpiece. And there are rules for that. It's got to have a religious subject; it has to be a very specific size and shape; it has to be viewable, even from the cheap seats at the back. And the great artists could fulfil all that and still make something that satisfied their own creative impulse, something that kept the client happy but also said what the artist wanted to say. That's not selling your soul - that's working brilliantly.
My contention is that it's the tension between specification and inspiration that makes art.
So, the game...
A villanelle is a really tight, restrictive format, in terms of metre, structure and length.
Nineteen lines, two rhymes, a regular metre (which must be consistent, whatever it is). There are two repeated lines, which always occur in the same places.
Wikipedia describes the structure like this:
The essence of the fixed modern form is its distinctive pattern of rhyme and repetition. The rhyme-and-refrain pattern of the villanelle can be schematized as
A1 b A2 (stanza 1, three lines)
a b A1 (stanza 2, three lines)
a b A2 (stanza 3, three lines)
a b A1 (stanza 4, three lines)
a b A2 (stanza 5, three lines)
a b A1 A2 (stanza 4, four lines)
where letters ("a" and "b") indicate the two rhyme sounds, upper case indicates a refrain ("A"), and superscript numerals (1 and 2) indicate Refrain 1 and Refrain 2.
...Which sounds complicated, but it's more easily understood when you see it.
Here's a famous one.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Another one - same structure, same form.
Discovering my orbit in your eyes,
I’ll focus there and dare it.
My love, I wouldn’t wish it otherwise.
Though once a spectacle in my disguise,
I’m naked now, I swear it,
Discovering my orbit in your eyes.
Eclipsed, revealed, freed and circumscribed,
I’ll steal your light and share it.
My love, I wouldn’t wish it otherwise.
The Old World in a new circumference lies.
By some rare cusp, I merit
Discovering my orbit in your eyes.
Struck blind by what I feared to visualise,
I’ll name it. I’ll declare it
My love. I wouldn’t wish it otherwise.
I’ve blinked at fear before, in other lives,
But this time I’ll out-stare it.
My love, I wouldn’t wish it otherwise,
Discovering my orbit in your eyes.
So, two lines repeated exactly, though possibly punctuated differently, and only two rhymes, and a tight metre.
A challenge, yes. If no one likes it, we'll do a limerick. (Though they're a lot more difficult than they look, too.)
Let's give the best part of a month for this. Deadline: March 31st
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Originally Posted by jajdude
