Rondeau, Poetic Form Exercise Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

The Rondeau consists of three stanzas, a quintet (5 lines), a quatrain (4 lines) and a sestet (6 lines), making the poem a total of 15 lines.

The first phrase of the first line usually sets the refrain ®, but sometimes the refrain can be the whole of the first line. The structure is:

line 1 - a ®(normally the first phrase is the refrain)
line 2 - a
line 3 - b
line 4 - b
line 5 - a

line 6 - a
line 7 - a
line 8 - b
line 9 - R

line 10 - a
line 11 - a
line 12 - b
line 13 - b
line 14 - a
line 15 - R

The meter is considered be open and the French style is not bound by a rhyming pattern and also is more of a light and buoyant even "flashy" form of poetry which uses short lines. The English style however, is much more dour and serious, even meditative and uses tetrameter or pentameter.

An excellent example of the English Rondeau form by Lt. Col. John McCrae, M.D., 1872-1918 follows:

In Flanders Fields

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.