A French fixed form built from quatrains of short, usually octosyllabic, lines, each quatrain ending on the same repeated refrain line, its name recalling the liturgical Kyrie eleison litany whose repeated plea the form's refrain structure echoes.
Facts
Place of OriginFrance, medieval period, its name drawn from the liturgical Kyrie litany. 1 StructureAny number of four-line stanzas in short meter (commonly eight syllables), each stanza's final line a repeated refrain. 1 Notable ExampleRevived by later English-language formalist poets reviving French fixed forms, including Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1 Connections
Form Of Genre
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Sources
1. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
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