9. The line of fifteen syllables occurs only in the so-called vers baïfins, with the cesura after the seventh syllable (7+8) and feminine rime: Muse, royne d'Elicon, | fille de memoire, ô déesse, Je veu donner aux François | un vers de plus libre accordance P. 23.) Lines of more than fifteen syllables are not found in French poetry, if we except the experiments of the boldest of the Symbolists and Vers-Libristes, who occasionally mix verses of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, or even a larger number of syllables with shorter measures in the same piece1. 1 Cf. Gustave Kahn, Premiers Poèmes, Paris, 1897. CHAPTER V ENJAMBEMENT OR OVERFLOW I. Enjambement is the overflowing of a clause begun in the one line into the next line or a subsequent line. II. Enjambement has at all times been freely admissible in the octosyllabic line. The reason is that it would not be possible, without the greatest monotony, invariably to contain the phrase within so short a period. But enjambements such as the following have always been looked upon as forced even in the octosyllabic line1: N'i a nul d'aus deus qui n'ait un (Ivain2, 1. 5506.) (Villon, Œuvres, p. 36.) Chaque wagon est un salon (Verlaine, Choix, p. 139.) III. In the decasyllabic line overflow is very rarely employed in Old French, and never in the popular or National Epic. Since the Middle French period, however, it has been admissible to use enjambement in that measure, provided the overflow takes up the whole of the next line or extends as far as the cesura: 1 Some O.F. poets even went so far as to occasionally stop the line in the middle of a word, as is sometimes done in English doggerel: Mais la matiere pas de liege Ne fu de quoy elle estoit faite, (Chemin de lonc estude, 1. 2272. Quoted by Tobler, p. 25.) 2 Quoted by Tobler, p. 24. Se vous clamons, frères, pas n'en devez Que tous les hommes n'ont pas bon sens assis. (Villon, Euvres, p. 154.) Lors sire Rat va commencer à mordre (Marot, Euvres, p. 39.) Examples are still more frequent in the poets of the Renaissance : Dessous le pas du soldat qui chemine (Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 178.) En ce chasteau par bandes fresmissoient De jour en jour florira davantage. (Ibid. p. 191.) (Baïf, Poes. Chois., p. 24.) Instances occur also in the classical poets, and more plentifully in those of the nineteenth century: Qui vous retient? allez; déjà l'hiver A disparu; déjà gronde dans l'air (Voltaire, Le Pauvre Diable, 11. 13–15.) And in the decasyllabic line with the pause after the fifth syllable: Moi j'errais tout seul, promenant ma plaie (Verlaine, Choix, p. 23.) IV. For the Alexandrine the case is more complicated. With regard to the Old French period the same applies as to the line of ten syllables, and, as the Alexandrine was practically discarded during the Middle French period, the history of overflow in that measure really only begins with the poets of the second half of the sixteenth century. The latter introduced enjambement freely in the Alexandrine, without any of the restrictions applying to the decasyllabic, although with them the most frequent overflow is that extending as far as the end of the first hemistich: On dit que Jupiter, fasché contre la race Des hommes, qui vouloient par curieuse audace (Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 354.) Souvent on les a veu sur le somet s'éprendre (Baïf, Poés. Chois., p. 13.) (Garnier, Hippolyte, 1. 2025.) Elle boust, elle escume, et suit en mugissant (Id., Troade, 1. 407.) Mais ores te voicy dans la raze campaigne, (Du Bartas, p. 281 1.) The dramatist Jodelle especially used overflow with greater frequency and boldness than any of his contemporaries : Que plus tost ceste terre au fond de ses entrailles 1 See Contemporains de Ronsard, p. 278. De ces bourrelles Sœurs, horreur de l'onde basse, And still more markedly in Didon, in the Queen's speech at the end of Act ii: Je l'ay, je l'ay receu, non en mon amitié Seulement, mais (hélas! trop folle) en la moitié It is possible, as some have surmised, that the poets of the second half of the sixteenth century were influenced in their use of overflow by the example of certain Italian poets of the time, but a statement of Ronsard in the preface of his epic poem La Franciade places the fact beyond all doubt that their models were the classical poets: J'ay esté d'opinion en ma jeunesse, says Ronsard, que les vers qui enjambent l'un sur l'autre n'estoient pas bons en nostre poésie; toutes fois j'ay cognus depuis le contraire par la lecture des autheurs grecs et romains comme Litora1. Lavinia venit Overflow continued to be used in the Alexandrine by a few belated Ronsardists till the beginning of the seventeenth century, notably by Régnier in his Satires: Sans juger nous jugeons, estant nostre raison Qui regne en nostre humeur, les brouillars nous embrouillent Car, puisque la fortune aveuglement dispose (Sat. ix. p. 73.) (Sat. iv. p. 28.) V. But with the advent of Malherbe a complete change came over the attitude of French poets with regard to the 1 Euvres, iii. p. 26. |