Rondel
Quick answer: How to write a rondel: the medieval French form of 13 or 14 lines built on two rhymes and a returning couplet, with history, rules and craft advice.
In the fifteenth century, Charles d'Orléans spent twenty-five years as an English prisoner of war and passed much of that time writing rondels. His most famous one greets the spring: the season has thrown off its cloak of wind, cold and rain. The form he perfected repeats its opening two lines as a kind of returning weather, and poets have been borrowing that trick ever since.
A rondel asks for thirteen or fourteen lines on two rhyme sounds, with the first two lines coming back in the middle and again at the end. It is gentler than the villanelle and roomier than the triolet, which makes it one of the friendliest repeating forms to learn first.
Where the rondel comes from
Rondel and rondeau began as the same word, both from rond, meaning round, and both naming circular song forms of medieval France. Machaut wrote them for music in the fourteenth century; Charles d'Orléans made the fifteenth-century rondel a vehicle for personal feeling rather than court ceremony.
The nineteenth century muddied the terminology. When English Victorians revived the old French shapes, Austin Dobson, Edmund Gosse and W. E. Henley settled on rondel for the version with a full two-line refrain, keeping rondeau for the fifteen-line form with a part-line refrain. Scholars still argue about historical usage, but that Victorian distinction is the one poets use today.
The rules and the two versions
Everything hangs on the opening couplet, lines A and B, which returns as lines seven and eight and again at the close. The rhyme scheme, using capitals for the refrain lines, runs ABba abAB abbaA for the thirteen-line rondel, or ABba abAB abbaAB when both refrain lines return at the end to make fourteen. There is no fixed meter, though English rondels usually settle into iambic tetrameter.
A working method
Start with a couplet that states something worth hearing three times: an observation about weather, love or time works because such things genuinely do recur. Make the two lines grammatically independent so they can re-enter the poem anywhere without dragging their original sentence behind them.
Then treat the three stanzas as setup, complication and release. The middle return of the couplet should feel like a reminder; the final return should feel like proof. If your last stanza merely repeats the mood of the first, add one image in lines nine to twelve that changes how the reader hears the refrain.
Strengths and the standard stumble
The rondel suits seasons, anniversaries, recurring moods and the pleasant ache of nostalgia. Its circular build makes it weak at argument and plot, so do not ask it to get anywhere; ask it to return somewhere.
The common beginner error is choosing a flat opening couplet. Two dull lines heard three times are three times as dull. If the refrain does not intrigue you on first reading, it will bore everyone by its third appearance.
What poets can take from this
- Write ten candidate opening couplets and keep the one that sounds best read aloud twice in a row.
- Make each refrain line a complete clause with no dangling pronouns.
- Choose rhyme sounds that offer both nouns and verbs so your syntax stays flexible.
- Use the middle stanza to introduce one new image, not three.
- Decide early whether you want the 13-line or 14-line close, since it changes the final cadence.
- Vary the punctuation around each refrain return so the repetition breathes differently each time.
Try it yourself
Write a rondel whose opening couplet describes the first sound you hear on waking, and let the poem's returns show that sound meaning comfort, then irritation, then loss.
Questions
What is the rhyme scheme of a rondel?
Using capital letters for repeated lines, the usual scheme is ABba abAB abbaA for thirteen lines, or ABba abAB abbaAB for fourteen. Only two rhyme sounds are used throughout.
Is a rondel the same as a rondeau?
Not in modern usage. The rondel repeats its full opening couplet as a refrain across thirteen or fourteen lines, while the rondeau repeats only the first phrase of its opening line across fifteen lines. Medieval poets used the terms loosely, which is why older books seem to contradict this.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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