RONDEAU

A rondeau (plural rondeaux) is a form of medieval and Renaissance French poetry. Together with the ballade and the virelai it was considered one of the three formes fixes, and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries. It is structured around a pattern of repetition or refrain. The rondeau is believed to have originated in dance songs involving alternating singing of the refrain elements.

The term "Rondeau" is today used both in a wider sense, covering several older variants of the form–which are sometimes distinguished as the triolet and rondel–and in a narrower sense referring to a 15-line variant which developed from these forms in the 15th and 16th centuries.  Rondeau can easily be found by its refrain or repeated lines or some words in another stanza. Sometimes, even the whole stanza is repeated in different stanzas.

The rondeau began as a lyric form in thirteenth-century France, popular among medieval court poets and musicians. Named after the French word for “round," the rondeau is characterized by the repeating lines of the rentrement, or refrain, and the two rhyme sounds throughout. The form was originally a musical vehicle devoted to emotional subjects such as spiritual worship, courtship, romance, and the changing of seasons. To sing of melancholy was another way of using the rondeau, but thoughts on pain and loss often turned to a cheerful in the final stanza.

The rondeau’s form is not difficult to recognize: as it is known and practiced today, it is composed of fifteen lines, eight to ten syllables each, divided stanzaically into a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet. The rentrement consists of the first few words or the entire first line of the first stanza, and it recurs as the last line of both the second and third stanzas. Two rhymes guide the music of the rondeau, whose rhyme scheme is as follows (R representing the refrain): aabba aabR aabbaR.

Where the rentrement appears in its traditional French form, it typically does not adhere to the rhyme-scheme--in the interest of maintaining the line’s buoyancy and force. But when nineteenth-century English poets adopted the rondeau, many saw (or heard) the rentrement as more effective if rhymed and therefore more assimilated into the rest of the poem. An example of a solemn rondeau is the Canadian army physician John McCrae’s 1915 wartime poem, "In Flanders Fields":

In Flanders Fields

By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place, and in the sky,

The larks, still bravely singing, fly,

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high!

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McCrae a poet from Ontario who wrote throughout his life, in his poem “In Flanders Field” tells about the death of his dear friend Lieutenant Colonel John who was killed in the “Second Battle of Ypres”. One of the most popular and the most quoted poem from the First World War resulted in using the poem as a means of propaganda, to raise money by the use of breaking the war bonds and most importantly, the poem was used as an appeal for the citizens to help the country by joining the war.

The “red poppies” which grew on the graves of the dead soldiers made remembrance poppy as one of the most significant war symbol for the soldiers who died fighting in wars for their own countries.

In his poem “In Flanders Field”, John McCrae clearly portrays his feelings about the death of his fellow soldier friend and how the death transited the struggle in his life with the peace of mind he attained. Written from the point of view of a dead person, “In Flanders field” was the most popular poem of the era. The poem if read properly is the exact description of the scene that a soldier faces while fighting for his own country, the poem also truly and beautifully describes the growth of red poppies on the graves of the soldiers.

The reader is mesmerized by the poem mainly because of the reason that the poem exactly explains the view of the graves of the dead soldiers, the beautiful poppies in a way explain the happiness of the dead soldiers because they died fighting for their motherland. They are different from the normal people who die because their death is marked by patriotism. The poet is witnessing sleepless nights because he cannot take the picture of his dead friend out of his mind. Though the poet is proud of his friends sacrifice, but still bearing the death of someone you love is nearly impossible.

John McCrae in a way gives an important message to the readers; they shall never forget the fact that if today they are living this beautiful life in a free country; it is only because of the sacrifice of thousands of these soldiers. The citizens in general should never forget that they should always be ready to support their country, their motherland if the situation demands so.

The poem was written way back before the time when the war started appearing bitter and lost its romanticism feature. Though the poem has been criticized for being vicious and stupid and having two different tones by historian Paul Fussell, still it remains the best poem which brings out the patriotic feelings out of a readers heart.

Bicara Itu Gampang

Hans Magnus Enzemberger.

Bicara itu gampang...
Benarkah????
Bicara itu gampang

Tapi, kata-kata tak dapat dimakan
Maka buatlah roti
Membuat roti itu sulit
Maka jadilah tukang roti

Tapi, tukang roti tak dapat ditinggali
Maka buatlah rumah
Membuat rumah itu sulit
Maka jadilah tukang bangunan

Tapi, di atas gunung tak bisa dibangun rumah
Maka pindahkanlah gunung
Memindahkan gunung itu sulit
Maka jadilah penyihir

Tapi, pikiran tak dapat di dengar
Maka bicaralah
Bicara itu sulit
Maka "jadilah kau seperti kau adanya"

dan teruslah bergumam sendirian,

wahai makhluk tak berguna.

Puisi ini diilhami oleh masa kelam ketika Nazi berkuasa, dan Hans pada zamannya adalah korban dari peristiwa tersebut yang menyebabkan Jerman jatuh dalam jurang perang dunia kedua. Yang saya hendak katakan adalah, meski apa yang ditulisnya itu tanpa metafora, nyatanya keseluruhan teks tersebut telah menjelma menjadi metafora tertentu, terutama bila puisi tersebut hendak kita tafsir, pakai teori apa pun.

Lihatlah, apa yang ditulis oleh Hans tentang kata-kata yang tidak bisa dimakan hingga menyuruh kita jadi tukang roti, sesungguhnya bukan hanya permainan kata-kata belaka, akan tetapi ada isi pikiran yang dihayati. Intinya hanya kerja keraslah yang akan menghasilkan sesuatu, dan bukan omong kosong. 

Source : Wikipedia &all

*this writing was published as an assignment, I'm sorry I was forget to put the source :(