From Horse and Buggy to Hovercraft

1. From Horse and Buggy to Hovercraft my research before and after Google Book Search Amanda French, December 2008

2. Refrain, Again:The Return of the Villanelle Diss., University of Virginia, 2004.

3. The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

4. Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.

5. A’ b A’’ a b A’ a b A’’ a b A’ a b A’’ a b A’ A’’ J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle: Est-ce point celle que j'oy? Je veus aller aprés elle. Tu regretes ta femelle, Helas! aussi fai-je moy, J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle. Si ton Amour est fidelle, Aussi est ferme ma foy, Je veus aller aprés elle. Ta plainte se renouvelle; Tousjours plaindre je me doy: J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle. En ne voyant plus la belle Plus rien de beau je ne voy: Je veus aller aprés elle. Mort, que tant de fois j'appelle, Pren ce qui se donne à toy: J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle, Je veus aller aprés elle.

6. Jean Passerat. “Villanelle” (“J’ay perdu ma tourterelle”). Recueil des oeuvres poétiques de Ian Passerat augmenté de plus de la moitié, outre les précédentes impressions. Ed. Jean de Rougevalet. Paris: Morel, 1606.

8. It hardly seems likely that a form so sparkling and complicated as the villanelle could have had its origin in an Italian harvest field. In fact it came from an Italian rustic song, the term itself villanella thought to derive from villano, an Italian word for "peasant," or even villa the Latin word for "country house" or "farm." • If it was a round song‑‑something sung with repetitive words and refrains‑‑it may have taken its first, long‑lost shape as an accompaniment to the different stages of an agricultural task. Binding sheaves, perhaps, or even scything. No actual trace of this early origin remains. By the time the villanelle emerges into poetic history, it does so as a French poem with pastoral themes. • The form we know today began with the work of a French poet called Jean Passerat. He was a popular, politically engaged writer in sixteenth‑century France. […] With the publication of this villanelle [“J’ay perdu ma Tourterelle”] and because of its immediate popularity‑‑amounting almost to popular‑song status in its day‑‑the form defined itself through contact with an audience: a striking but not uncommon way for poetic form to find itself. • Mark Strand and Eavan Boland. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. 1st edn. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.

9. No two of the eighteen are identical in rhyme scheme, length, and syllable count. They do not resemble each other but, in most cases, each resembles an actual musical villanella or villancico. It cannot possibly be said that there was anything resembling a poetic ‘form,’ let alone a fixed poetic form, for the villanelle in the sixteenth century. Julie Kane. "How the Villanelle's Form Got Fixed." Diss., Louisiana State University, 1999.

10. Banville, Théodore Faullain de. Petit traité de poésie française. Paris: Libraire de l'Echo de la Sorbonne, 1871, 1872.

12. Vieux rhythme, d'une grâce et d'une naîveté charmantes, à qui plusieurs poètes modernes ont essayé de rendre la vogue. Un exemple vaudra mieux que toutes les explications and voici le chef-d'oeuvre des villanelles: [full text of “J’ay perdu ma Tourterelle”] On remarquera que la villanelle est une sorte de terza rima faite d'un bout à l'autre avec les mêmes rimes. Le premier et le dernier vers du premier tercet finissent à tour de rôle les tercets suivants. Seulement on doit s'arrêter sur un tercet finissant par le premier vers (J'ai perdu ma tourterelle), parce que le dernier vers (Je veux aller après elle) est destiné à former le noeud. • An old form, of a charming grace and naiveté, which many modern poets have tried to make fashionable. • One example will be worth more than all explanations; here is the masterpiece of villanelles: [full text of "J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle"]. • One will notice that the villanelle is a kind of terza rima constructed with the same rhymes laid end to end. The first and the last lines of the first tercet complete the following tercets in turn. But one must stop on a tercet finishing with the first line ("I have lost my turtledove"), because the last line ("I want to go after her") is destined to tie the knot. Siegel, Patricia Joan, ed. Wilhelm Ténint et sa prosodie de l'école moderne: avec des documents inédits. Paris and Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1986. Reprint of Wilhelm Ténint, Prosodie de l’école moderne, Paris: Didier, 1844.

13. There is clearly no evidence of a fixed-form villanelle earlier than 1751, when Berthelin made his "augmentations" to Richelet's Dictionnaire de rimes. Despite Berthelin's audacity in having silently fixed the form of the villanelle in that year, however, no poet seems to have noticed for almost a century. Then Théodore de Banville, with the publication of "Villanelle de Buloz" (1845), became the second poet in literary history to produce a "fixed-form villanelle": he added two tercets to the length of Passerat's "J'ay perdu" but otherwise observed the strictures of its form. […] Amanda French suggests that Banville had recently encountered Passerat's "J'ay perdu" and a description of the villanelle's form in Wilhelm Ténint's volume Prosodie de l'école moderne (1844). Berthelin appears to be the source for Ténint, although, in pointing out the obvious fact that the last tercet before the final stanza must end with the second refrain, Ténint seems to imply that villanelles may vary in length from Passerat's model. Banville later included a definition of the fixed-form villanelle in his own prosodic treatise, Petit traité de poésie française (1872), which was the text responsible for popularizing the form in England by way of the poets Edmund Gosse and Austin Dobson. Kane, J. E. (2003). "The Myth of the Fixed-Form Villanelle." Modern Language Quarterly64(4): 427-43.

16. J. Passerat, Recueil des oeuvres poétiques, 1606 P. Richelet, Dictionnaire des rimes, Nouv. ed, ed. P. C. Berthelin, 1751 Nouvelle encyclopédie poétique, ed. P. A. Capelle and Société de gens de lettres, 18 v. (1818-19) W. Ténint, Prosodie de l’école moderne, 1844 H. Tampucci, A, E, I, O, U, manuel-dictionnaire des rimes françaises, 2nd ed, 1866 T. de Banville, Petit traité de poésie française, 1872

17. Harry M. Rhoads. Old-time horse and buggy photo. Ca. 1910-30. The Harry M. Rhoads Photograph Collection. Denver Public Library. Available http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?00185574+Rh-574. Accessed 15 Dec. 2008.

18. Ray Wert. “Pal-V Flying Car Nearing Production! We’re Totally Serious! No, Really!” Jalopnik: Obsessed with the Cult of Cars. Blog. Available http://jalopnik.com/cars/flying-cars/pal+v-flying-car-nearing-production-were-totally-serious-no-really-306528.php. Accessed 15 Dec. 2008.

19. eifelyeti110. “Hovercraft ‘The Princess Margaret’ at Dover Beach, England, Summer 1997.” Flickr. Available http://flickr.com/photos/eifelyeti110/273939759/. Accessed 15 Dec. 2008.