Defining the Bref Double

April 26, 2008

There is a fair bit of conflicting information out there defining the bref double. All definitions agree that there are fourteen lines composed of three quatrains and a closing couplet. All agree that line length is meant to be approximately the same throughout the poem, though not necessarily syllabically exact.

At question is the rhyme scheme. A number of sources (including Travis Lyon’s Forms of Poetry) propose this rhyme scheme:

axbc
xaxc
axab
ab

Where x are words that are not rhymed with the primary rhymes or themselves.

Turco’s Book of Forms has a different set of rules that allow for a few different schemes: the a and b rhymes must appear twice somewhere in the three quatrains and once in the concluding couplet, while the c rhyme must end each quatrain. That allows for possibilities such as the example given by Turco:

axbc
xaxc
bxxc
ab

Turco’s definition doesn’t address the non-rhyming words directly, which implies they could rhyme with each other, just not with the main a/b/c rhymes.

I’d need some math to figure out how many possibilities that leaves, but at least a few, such as:

axxc
bxxc
abxc
ab

or

axbc
xxac
xxbc
ab

etc.

I might be projecting, but Turco makes more sense to me, particularly having the final rhyme at the end of all three quatrains as an anchor giving the form shape as a whole.

Tags: bref double, forms, poetry