RONDEAU

       The rondeau, a French form, has a long history and was very popular earlier with English poets. As practiced today, the rondeau is a 15-line structure with a refrain.

       The 15 lines are divided into 3 stanzas. Stanza 1 contains 5 lines; stanza 2, 4 lines; stanza 3, 6 lines.  (In more formal terms, they are called  a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet.)

       Line 1 should be chosen very carefully because part of it will become the required refrain (also called rentrement).  The refrain is usually the first few words of line 1, but that is not a hard and fast rule. The repeated words may be taken from elsewhere in line 1.  The refrain does not have to rhyme; however, English poets felt the refrain more effective if it was rhymed and assimilated with the rest of the poem.

       The meter is iambic tetrameter (preferred) or iambic pentameter. That means each line contains 4 iambic feet (8 syllables), or each line contains 5 iambic feet (10 syllables). With R standing for the refrain, the rhyme scheme is aabba-aabR-aabbaR. The challenge in writing a rondeau is finding opening words worth repeating and choosing two rhyme sounds that provide enough word choices.

The rondeau is usually light in tone, even playful with today's poets, but it can be solemn and melancholy. In the classic example below, a solemn wartime poem by John McCrae (1915), the refrain does not rhyme.

In Flanders Field

In Flanders Field the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly;
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset flow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
                                  In Flanders Field.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
                                   In Flanders Field.

Note:  Take care not to confuse this form with the rondel, a variant of the rondeau. The rondel differs from the rondeau in two important aspects: (1) the total number of lines; and (2) the use of complete rather than partial lines in the refrain.

William E. Henley, famous for his poem Invictus, changes the line count  in the 3 stanzas from 5, 4, and 6 llines to 4, 5, and 6 lnines in his rondeau below:

In Rotten Row

In Rotten Row a cigarette
I sat and smoked, with no regret
For all the tumult that had been
The distances were still and green,

And streaked with shadows cool and wet.
Two sweethearts on a bench were set.
Two birds amoung tehe boughs were met;
So love and song were hard and seen
                                         In Rotten Row.

A horse or two there was to fret
The soundless sand; but work and debt,
Fair flowers and falling leaves between,
While clocks are chiming clear and keen,
A man may very well forget
                                         In Rotten Row.

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