This article is about the poetry form. For other uses, see Rondeau

Rondeau

Rondeau is a surname with French origins. Some notable people with this name include:-People:*Jane Rondeau, the wife of Claudius Rondeau, an English minister in St Petersburg in 1720-1739...

.

A rondeau (plural rondeaux) is a form of French poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 with 15 lines written on two rhymes, as well as a corresponding musical form developed to set this characteristic verse structure. It was one of the three formes fixes (the other two were the ballade

Ballade

The ballade is a form of French poetry. It was one of the three formes fixes and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries....

 and the virelai

Virelai

A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries.A virelai is similar to a rondeau...

), and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries. Variant forms may have 10 or 13 lines. A similar form is the French rondel

Rondel

Rondel may refer to:* Rondel or roundel, type of medieval dagger...

 and its English variant called roundel, devised by the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

.

The rondeau is a form of verse also used in English language poetry. It makes use of refrains, repeated according to a certain stylized pattern. It was customarily regarded as a challenge to arrange for these refrains to contribute to the meaning of the poem in as succinct and poignant a manner as possible. The rondeau consists of thirteen lines of eight syllables, plus two refrains (which are half lines, each of four syllables), employing, altogether, only three rhymes. It has three stanzas and its rhyme scheme is as follows: (1) A A B B A (2) A A B with refrain: C (3) A A B B A with concluding refrain C. The refrain must be identical with the beginning of the first line.

An example is We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar was a seminal African American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dunbar gained national recognition for his 1896 "Ode to Ethiopia", one poem in the collection Lyrics of Lowly Life....

:

We wear the mask that grins and lies, (A)

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— (A)

This debt we pay to human guile; (B)

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, (B)

And mouth with myriad subtleties. (A)

Why should the world be over-wise, (A)

In counting all our tears and sighs? (A)

Nay, let them only see us, while (B)

We wear the mask. (C)

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries (A)

To thee from tortured souls arise. (A)

We sing, but oh the clay is vile (B)

Beneath our feet, and long the mile; (B)

But let the world dream otherwise, (A)

We wear the mask! (C)

Perhaps the best-known rondeau is the following World War I poem, In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields

"In Flanders Fields" is one of the most notable poems written during World War I, created in the form of a French rondeau. It has been called "the most popular poem" produced during that period...

, by John McCrae

John McCrae

Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres...

:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

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 glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

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 fields.

Rondeau redoublé

A more complex form is the rondeau redoublé. This is also written on two rhymes, but in five stanzas of four lines each and one of five lines. Each of the first four lines (stanza 1) get individually repeated in turn once by becoming successively the respective fourth lines of stanzas 2, 3, 4, & 5; and the first part of the first line is repeated as a short fifth line to conclude the sixth stanza. This can be represented as - A1,B1,A2,B2 - b,a,b,A1 - a,b,a,B1 - b,a,b,A2 - a,b,a,B2 - b,a,b,a,(A1).

The following example of the form was written from the point of view of one of the RAF officers carrying the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...

 to the plane that was to carry it to England.

Guard of Honour by Paul Hansford

The burden I bear is more heavy than lead.

The physical weight is a thing that I share,

but the loss that I feel will not leave my head.

Why did you have to die? Why is death so unfair?

I am close to you now. Yes, touching my hair

the flag with its lions of gold and of red

that wraps round your coffin. I know you are there.

The burden I bear is more heavy than lead.

My comrades move with me in slow, solemn tread.

Our eyes are all fixed in an unseeing stare.

Our shoulders support you in your oaken bed.

The physical weight is a thing that I share.

As I feel the world watching I try not to care.

My deepest emotions are best left unsaid.

Let others show grief like a garment they wear,

but the loss that I feel will not leave my head.

The flowers they leave like a carpet are spread,

In the books of remembrance they have written, "Somewhere

a star is extinguished because you are dead.

Why did you have to die? Why is death so unfair?"

The tears that we weep will soon grow more rare,

the rawness of grief turn to memory instead.

But deep in our hearts you will always be there,

and I ask, will I ever be able to shed

the burden I bear?

See also

• Rondel
  Rondel (poem)
  A rondel is a verse form originating in French lyrical poetry, later used in the verse of other languages as well, such as English and Romanian. It is a variation of the rondeau consisting of two quatrains followed by a quintet or a sestet...
  
  
• Roundel

Analogous musical forms:

• Rondo
  Rondo
  Rondo, and its French equivalent rondeau, is a word that has been used in music in a number of ways, most often in reference to a musical form, but also to a character-type that is distinct from the form...
  
  
• Rondeau (music)
  Rondeau (music)
  The rondeau was a Medieval and early Renaissance musical form, based on the contemporary popular poetic rondeau form. It is distinct from the 18th century rondo, though the terms are likely related...
  
  -- Medieval and Renaissance form

External links

• Four early-21st-century rondeaus in English by Suzanne Honour