Also 6 villanell, 7 -el. [a. F. villanelle, ad. It. villanella: see prec. In the first quot. perh. an Anglicizing of the Italian word.]
† 1. = prec. Obs.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, etc. (1629), 535. To the tune of a Neapolitan Villanell.
1603. Florio, trans. Montaigne, I. liv. 170. The Villanelles, homely gigges, and countrie songs of Gasconie.
1685. Cotton, trans. Montaigne (1711), I. liv. I. 472.
2. A poem of fixed form, usually of a pastoral or lyric nature, consisting normally of five three-lined stanzas and a final quatrain, with only two rhymes throughout.
The first and third lines of the first stanza are repeated alternately in the succeeding stanzas as a refrain, and form a final couplet in the quatrain.
1877. Gosse, in Cornhill Mag., July, 65. It appears that villanelles may be any length, if only they retain this number and arrangement of rhymes.
1877–8. Henley, in Ballades & Rondeaus (Canterb. Poets), 252. A dainty thing’s the Villanelle. Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme, It serves its purpose passing well.
1886. C. Dick, The Model, etc., 90 (title), A Vacation Villanelle.
