Villanelle
A nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets (three-line stanzas) followed by one quatrain (four lines), with an ABA rhyme scheme and two repeating refrains. The villanelle's obsessive repetition creates incantatory or circular effects.
Real World
Dylan Thomas's 'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night' uses the villanelle's obsessive refrains to dramatise a son's desperate, repeating plea to his dying father — the form enacts the emotion.
Exam Focus
Analyse how the returning refrains shift in meaning across stanzas; showing how repetition creates development rather than mere echo gains high AO2 marks.
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