quadrille: noun – 1. a square dance performed typically by four couples and containing five (or six) sections, each of which is a complete dance in itself. A piece of music for a quadrille dance. 2. each of four groups of riders taking part in a tournament or carousel, distinguished by a special costume or colors. A riding display.
The Dance
The dance took its name from square formations executed by four mounted horsemen in 17th-century military parades. The dance was executed by four couples in a square formation.
The following table from Wikipedia shows what the different parts of the Viennese six-part style look like, musically speaking:
- part 1: Pantalon (written in 2/4 or 6/8)
- theme A – theme B – theme A – theme C – theme A
- part 2: Été (always written in 2/4)
- theme A – theme B – theme B – theme A
- part 3: Poule (always written in 6/8)
- theme A – theme B – theme A – theme C – theme A – theme B – theme A
- Part 3 always begins with a two-measure introduction
- part 4: Trénis (always written in 2/4)
- theme A – theme B – theme B – theme A
- part 5: Pastourelle (always written in 2/4)
- theme A – theme B – theme C – theme B – theme A
- part 6: Finale (always written in 2/4)
- theme A – theme A – theme B – theme B – theme A – theme A
- Part 6 always begins with a two-measure introduction
All the themes are 8 measures long.
The Poem
I started this study of quadrilles today because it’s Quadrille Monday at dVerse Poets Pub and I wanted to participate for the fist time. The connection between the quadrille dance and poetry began when Lewis Carroll lampooned the dance in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’s
The dVerse Poets Pub Quadrille is a poem (or short prose) in exactly 44 words that incorporates a given word. To quote from the original post from Björn Rudberg, “The challenge combines two essential elements to have fun.” Today’s word is muddle and the quotes on the site are great!
I headed over to Shadow Poetry to see if they had a poetry form page for the quadrille and the closest I found was an invented poetry form by C. G. V. Lewis called a quadrilew.
Over at Poetry Soup I found a page of links to poems about quadrille that they call Quadrille Poems which I thought was interesting.
And now that I have some understanding of quadrille (at least the word), here is my first attempt at creating my own:
The Dance
Lace and denim muddled
space in a rat race
Grace; a muddled mint
in a julep glazed
Chase a hint
of mace-muddled flint,
a warm taste
Face the phenom
of muddled voices
venom without trace
Time is a climb of thirsting,
bursting rhyme sublime
The Horses
Happy Reading and Writing!
and dancing and horses and costumes
Experience Writing 
I enjoyed your poem!
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LOVE the poem….most especially the last two lines. Very interesting to read your research too. As Bjorn mentioned, the Quadrille is really unique to dVerse and is quite simply put, a poem of 44 words, sans the title. And as we do it on dVerse, there is a one word prompt, and that word must be found somewhere in the poem (or a form of the word; but not a synonym for the word!) 🙂 Glad you’re with us here!
PS: being a dancer from way back, loved all the info there too!
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Nice sound like a dance of rhyme.
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“Grace; a muddled mint
in a julep glazed”… love this!💜
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Thank you.
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Ha.. love how you went back on the form info… but truly the name we came up with.
I love how you recreated the dance again.
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Thank you. I didn’t expect all the fun I found.
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I liked time as a climb of thirsting!
Dwight
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Thank you. A thirst will kill you, every two days, or so.
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If this is your first quadrille, then I can’t wait to see subsequent ones. An interesting read.
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Thank you so much. I liked using what I found out about the dance to create rhyme and rhythm and I hope I can duplicate it or even find a better way to Quadrille next time.
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I’m sure you can!
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That opening stanza sings! Lovely lines
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This is wonderful! My favorite lines:
“Grace; a muddled mint
in a julep glazed”
You won’t find any info on the poetic form the quadrille anywhere but dVerse. We invented it. 😉
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Thank you. Though scholars of Lewis Carroll may disagree, you certainly invented this form and I had a ton of fun learning all about quadrilles because of it. 🙂
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Well, I’m quite certain we would be perfectly happy to be associated with Lewis Carroll in ANY way, including a lawsuit. 😉
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