A triolet is a French poetic form with eight lines and two rhymes, where the first line is repeated three times. It can convey humorous or serious ideas, and its repetition and brevity make it appealing. Thomas Hardy’s triolet “How Great is My Sorrow” exemplifies how repetition can add complexity to a seemingly simple poem.
Similar to a rondo, a triolet is a poetic form with a fixed structure and repeating lines. Originating in France around the 13th century, a triolet consists of eight lines using only two rhymes. The first line is repeated halfway through the poem, and the couplet that begins the poem also ends it. A triolet is often used to convey humorous ideas, but can also direct serious thoughts.
Meaning “triplet” in French, a triolet gets its name from the repeated first line. This verse is seen three times in the poem, in lines one, four and seven. The second line is repeated only once, at line eight, but both lines together regulate the rhyme scheme of a triolet. Because lines four and seven are repeated, they must rhyme with line one, but lines three and five also rhyme with line one. Line six rhymes with the repeated phrase in lines two and eight, thus creating only two rhymes in the poem.
While modern triolets are often humorous, earlier poems were often about serious subjects. A Benedictine monk, Patrick Carey, wrote the earliest surviving triolets. His poems consisted mainly of devotionals. Robert Bridges, a 19th-century English poet who briefly popularized the form, also wrote mostly serious pieces. After the 19th century, the triolet fell out of fashion and is rarely used compared to other shapes.
The repetition and brevity of the triolet are the usual appeals of this kind of poetry. Writers of comic poetry may use repetition to accentuate a silly or humorous aspect of their subject or, like masterfully written serious pieces, add layers of meaning to each successive repetition. This technique often transforms a seemingly simple poem into a complex work of art.
For example, the English poet Thomas Hardy begins his triolet “How Great is My Sorrow” with the statement “How great is my sorrow, my joys how few.” The statement is a complete thought, indicating the current state of mind of him. Lines six and seven, however, state “neither loving-kindness helped to show thee / how great my pain, my joys how few”. Here Hardy uses the repeated first line as the second half of a more complex sentence, now indicating not his mood, but the inability of the person addressed in the poem to understand the speaker’s mood. This shift in meaning helps lend complexity to the seemingly simple poem.
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