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While Italy was rising step by step to the sublimest expression of poetical feeling, in France the best New French talents seemed engrossed with the conforms. struction of a formulary. The old simple schemes, which had sufficed for Thibaut de Champagne, for Gace Brulé, and for Colin Muset, were discarded in favour of strict, in some cases very strict, laws, at once a challenge to technical ability and a grievous hindrance to a free and natural style. Under the new conditions, to write verse was not too easy; to write poetry, almost impossible. The only compensation was that these pedantic limitations counteracted a tendency to diffuseness, the characteristic besetment of this decadent age.

The chant royal.

Let us first dispose of the various forms of the new French lyric. The chant royal corresponds in a measure to the Italian canzone, being reserved for lofty and serious themes. The name is closely connected with the literary competitions of which I have spoken, and in which the poet winning the first prize stood forth as King. The chant royal was composed of five strophes. Each strophe consisted of eleven lines, and each line of ten syllables. Not only were all the strophes identical in plan, but the same rhymes were retained in the same order, while the last line of the first was repeated at the end of each succeeding strophe, and formed the refrain. At the close of the poem came the envoi of five lines addressed to the prince or president, and recapitulating in brief what has preceded.

The ancient name of the popular dance-song was

The balade.

balete, and it appears to have run thus-ababc CC.1 The later balade, on the other hand, generally ran ababbcbC. This form is an abridgment, as it were, of the chant royal, though it might be truer to describe the chant royal as a degenerate offshoot, or wilful corruption, of the balade. However that may be, the balade consisted of three strophes, having the same metre, the same rhymes, and, of course, the same refrain; and it concluded with a half strophe forming the envoi. The number of lines in a strophe, and the number of syllables in a line, were left to the poet's discretion. Generally, there were eight or ten lines, and seven, eight, or ten syllables. Later authorities-e.g., Sibilet in his Art Poétique (1548)-prescribe that the number of lines should correspond to the number of syllables; but this rule does not appear to have been universally followed, at any rate by the older poets.

The simple rondel, afterwards known as the triolet, had only one strophe of eight or seven lines, and

either one or two rhymes. Where there The rondel. are seven lines, the first line only constitutes the refrain. In the case of rondel everything turns on the refrain. The simplest form of the simple rondel was A1A2a Aaa A1A2. If, however, the refrain rhymed AB, the scheme became ABa AabAB. With regard to the number of syllables in a line, they range from one to ten, and the lines may be regular or

1 The capital letters, here and elsewhere, indicate the one, two, or three lines of the refrain.

irregular. Here is a rondel entirely composed of monosyllabic lines:

je

dy

que

je

le

vy

je

dy.

But a rondel was not necessarily simple, and the longer the refrain, the longer the rondel became. Thus the refrain ABBA resulted in the scheme ABBAab A Babba ABBA. By means of a five-lined refrain with a three-lined resumption, or a six-lined refrain with a two-lined resumption, rondeaux were formed twenty-one or twenty-two lines in length. The tendency, however, was to diminish both the length and the importance of the refrain. The earlier rondeau double, afterwards known as the rondeau quatrain, consisted of twelve lines, and the later rondeau double of fifteen lines, each with a single refrain-line. The schemes of the rondeau quatrain and the rondeau double were respectively Abbaab Aabba A and Aabbaaab AaabbaA. Here is an example of the rondeau quatrain, by Charles of Orléans :

"Gardez le trait de la fenestre,
Amans, qui par rues passez :

Car plus tost en seres blessez

Que de trait d'arc ou arbalestre.
N'allez a destre n'à senestre
Regardant; mais les yeulx baissez :

Gardez le trait de la fenestre.

Si n'avez medecin bon maistre,

:

Si tost que vous serez navrez

A Dieu soyez recommandez.

Mors vous tiens; demandez le prestre.
Gardez le trait de la fenestre."

Often only the first word of the refrain was given, followed by "etc."; but this was a slipshod device, and ruinous to the metrical effect.

The bergerette and virelai.

The school of Charles of Orléans invented what may be termed an imperfect rondeau-the bergerette, of which the distinctive feature was the reception in a separate compartment of two new rhymes-for example, ABBAcdcdabba ABBA. The virelai (earlier, vireli) is simply a bergerette expanded into several strophes, with the refrain repeated only at the conclusion of the last strophe.

There are many sorts of rhyme. The rime léonine or riche is supposed to be formed of two masculine Varieties of rhymes, but in practice is often synonyrhyme. mous with the feminine rhyme. Rimes equivoques or equivoquées are those in which simple are rhymed with compound words or combinations of words: metent; entremetent, or volagement; vol a je ment. The rhyme is said to be annexée when the last syllable of one line is the first of the next, and fratrisée when the last word of one line is the first of the next. The following strophe of a ballade by Eustache Deschamps will illustrate most of these peculiarities :

"Lasse, lasse! malheureuse et dolente
Lente me voy, fors de souspirs et plains,

Plains sont mes jours d'ennuy et de tourmente.
Mente qui veult, car mes cuers est certains;

Tains jusqu'à mort, et pour celli qui j'ains,
Ains, mais ne fut dame si fort atainte,
Tainte me voy, quant il m'ayme le mains.
Mains, entendez ma piteuse complainte."

The rime batelée is that in which the last syllable of one line is the middle syllable of the next. When all the lines of a strophe, or all the words of a line, begin with the same letter, the rhyme is senée. It is couronnée when the last two words of the line have the same ending:

"La blanche columbelle belle,"

and emperière when the rhyme is thrice repeated:"En grant remord Mort mord."

It would be possible, availing myself of treatises like Henri Croy's Art et Science de Rhétorique, to fill many Guillaume de pages with such details, but I prefer to Machault. devote the remainder of my space to the poets composing in this style. The earliest was Guillaume de Machault (c. 1284-1377), who attached himself to the person of successive monarchs (Philippe le Bel, Jean II., Charles V.), and sang their achievements. Machault was rather a minstrel than a poet; and, as a musician, he displayed some originality by inventing new airs ("des tailles nouvelles"). These airs gave considerable vogue to his verse, but, on his death, partly from the flimsy nature of its support, his fame suddenly collapsed. Like other poets of the school, he lived to be extremely old; it was an age of rapid transition, and Machault clung to Old French forms, though he failed to renew their pristine fresh

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