(b. 1856), the leader of this new school, has gone at least as far as Ronsard in the matter of hiatus between vowels: Il y avait des arcs où passaient des escortes. (Poésies, p. 1.) Les membres délicats où tu es enfermée. (Ibid. p. 141.) Et je me suis meurtri | avec mes propres traits. (Ibid. p. 149.) A la quenouille où est la Parque embesognée. (Ibid. p. 220.) VII. The question of hiatus is more complicated as regards those words in which the vowel sound of the first word is followed by one or more consonants that were formerly pronounced, but which have since become mute. The rules that obtain now in such cases, and which teach that all consonants annul hiatus, owe indeed their origin to Malherbe also, but he cannot be made responsible for the inconsequences they entail as the result of certain changes in French pronunciation. Thus the nasal vowels (an, en, in, on, un, &c.) are not considered to constitute a hiatus with the succeeding vowel or nasal vowel. According to the pronunciation of Malherbe and his contemporaries--and also of his predecessors-this rule was perfectly reasonable, as, whatever may have been the nature of the vowel, the nasal consonant was then invariably pronounced in liaison. This view is corroborated by Malherbe's annotations of the following lines of Desportes: Si la foi plus certaine en une âme non feinte Et que cette saison en une autre passa : Nen, nu, no. (Euvres, iv. p. 251.) (Ibid. p. 363.) Thus the following lines in his own poems are quite free of hiatus if pronounced as Malherbe and his contemporaries would have pronounced them: L'école d'Apollon apprend la verité. (Euvres, i. p. 104.) Vous ne leur donnez rien s'ils n'ont chacun un monde. (Ibid. p. 103.) The same holds good of the classicists of the seventeenth century, and probably also of the poets of the eighteenth century: Néron impatient se plaint de votre absence. (Racine, Britannicus, Act v. Sc. 2.) Enfant au premier acte, est barbon au dernier. (Boileau, Art Poétique, Canto iii, 1. 42.) Mais pourtant on a vu le vin et le hasard. (Ibid., Canto ii, 1. 192.) But since the end of the eighteenth century the liaison of the n of the nasal vowels has become the exception even in sustained style and in declaiming verse. It is impossible to lay down any very definite rule in a matter which often depends on circumstances and individual taste. All that can be said is that liaison is generally confined to the adjectives immediately preceding the substantive, more especially the possessive adjectives (mon, ton, son) and bon, and to the monosyllabic words en, on, bien, and rien. Accordingly it will be generally admitted that hiatus is absent in the following examples: A des songes dorés mon âme se livrait. (Gautier, Poésies Complètes, i. p. 46.) Qui ne sait trop s'il marche à gauche on bien à droite. (Ibid. p. 21.) Tu m'as fait trop heureux, ton amour me tuera. but present in the following: (Id. Poésies Nouvelles, p. 40.) Recevez doucement la leçon ou le blâme. (V. Hugo, Contemplations, i. p. 19.) Ayant raison au fond, d'avoir tort dans la forme. Quelle main à son vol livrera l'horizon? (Ibid. p. 42.) (Gautier, Poésies Complètes, i. p. 39.) Dont un matin au plus la terre est arrosée. (A. de Musset, Premières Poésies, p. 81.) However, if the n or m of the nasal vowel is followed by one or more consonants, liaison is generally applied in reading or declaiming verse, provided that no stop or pause occurs between the two words: Vous dirigez vers moi vos regards longs et doux. (Gautier, Poesies Complètes, i. p. 81.) Avec son soleil d'or aux rayons éclatants. (Ibid. p. 38.) Couchant où je pouvais, rarement à la ville. (A. de Musset, Premières Poésies, p. 83.) Il parut réfléchir en marchant à pas lents. (Ibid. p. 70.) Words ending in -ier, -et, -ard, and a few others, are not now linked by liaison to the following word beginning with a vowel; so that in this case also hiatus is avoided for the eye but not for the ear: Pétillent les tisons, entourés d'une frange (Gautier, Poésies Complètes, i. p. 48.) Le rendent de tout point très singulier à voir. (Ibid. p. 70.) Qu'une duègne toujours de quartier en quartier Talonne. Yet another inconsistency is that the so-called h aspirée is still counted as a consonant. It had that value till the end of the eighteenth century, but since that time it has been quite mute. Hence the following examples show hiatus: Pauvre oiseau qui heurtais du crâne mes barreaux. (V. Hugo, Contemplations, i. p. 50.) Et songeais, dans mon âme, aux héros d'Ossian. Sous la haie embaumée un mince filet d'eau. (Gautier, Poésies Complètes, i. p. 21.) If words in which the vowel sound is followed by one or more consonants are separated from another word beginning with a vowel by a stop or the cesural pause, liaison is impossible on account of the pause over which it cannot take place, but the very fact of a pause existing likewise renders hiatus impossible, for, as was previously stated, the necessary condition of a clash is contact. Thus the following lines are free of hiatus: Vous savez, et Calchas mille fois vous l'a dit. (Racine, Iphigénie, 1. 1283.) Mais n'importe; il le veut, et mon cœur s'y résout. (Ibid. 1. 827.) On dit, à ce propos, qu'un jour ce dieu bizarre... A se laisser aimer, à m'aimer, à m'entendre. (A. Chénier, Poésies, p. 87.) Les vrais sages, ayant la raison pour lien. (V. Hugo, Contemplations, i. p. 66.) Quelques ormes tortus, | aux profils irrités. A Paris! Oh! l'étrange et la plaisante affaire. (Ibid. p. 86.) (A. de Musset, Prem. Poés., p. 130.) Aux grands sourcils arqués; | aux longs yeux de velours. (Gautier, Poés. Compl., i. p. 11.) A fortiori many of the lines in the Romantic poets which as the result of the free use of enjambement often contain pauses more marked than that at the cesura: Je pris pour osciller une fosse ; j'avais Les pieds transis, ayant des bottes sans semelle. (V. Hugo, Légende des Siècles, iv. p. 57.) Il nous apparaissait des visages d'aurore (Id., Contemplations, i. p. 99.) But it is unconsciously and in complete ignorance of the importance of the pause as annulling hiatus that modern poets have reached this result, or if not they would freely admit the succession of vowels in like cases, which they do not1. On the contrary, the poets of the sixteenth century were conscious that they were avoiding hiatus in such cases, as all final consonants were then pronounced before a pause of any kind. This was possibly still the case when Malherbe wrote, but, even if we exclude this possibility, we know that in his eyes a pause did not exclude liaison, and that he too thus avoided hiatus consciously in such cases*. 1 A good proof of this is that La Fontaine felt bound to ruin the rhythm of the following lines by adding the article to 'on': Ce que je vous dis là, l'on le dit à bien d'autres. (Euvres, i. p. 252.) Une vache était là: | Pon l'appelle; elle vient. (Ibid. ii. p. 231.) 2 All the grammarians of the sixteenth century, from Palsgrave (1530) to Henri Étienne (1582), are unanimous on that point. See Thurot, De la prononciation française depuis le commencement du xvi® siècle, ii. p. Io sqq. 3 See Thurot, ii. p. 14. 4 As this view is new and somewhat startling at first sight, it may not seem irrelevant to state that the proof of it is afforded by those notes of the Commentaire in which Malherbe pulls up Desportes for cacophonie: Mais vous, belle tyranne, | aux Nérons comparable : Tira, noz, nez. (Euvres, iv. p. 252.) It is tempting at first sight to conclude that Malherbe had no objection to hiatus provided the eye was satisfied, but we also know from his remarks on the words pied, nid, and nud1, in which the d is merely a false etymological letter which was never pronounced, that such was not his view. It is the assumption that such was his view that explains the practice of French poets from the time of the classicists till the present day. These considerations make it clear that the rules governing the use of hiatus are irrational as they now stand 2. It is doubtful if French poetry would gain by a remodelling of these rules, which in itself would be an admission that such a delicate subject as poetic euphony is capable with advantage of being confined within hard-and-fast limits. It seems rather that the avoidance or admission of the concurrence of vowel sounds had better be left entirely to the poet's ear. De même, en mes douleurs j'avais pris espérance. (Euvres, iv. p. 260.) Et que je suis constant, | étant désespéré. : Tan, té, tant. (Ibid. p. 268.) Et que mon âme libre | erroit à son plaisir. (Ibid. p. 303.) 1 Euvres, iv. pp. 353, 416, 456, 469. (Ibid. p. 373.) 2 Several theorists (compare e. g. D'Alembert's letter of March 11, 1770, to Voltaire) have contended that the rules prohibiting hiatus between a vowel sound at the end of a word and another at the beginning of the next are invalidated by the fact that such concurrences of vowels are found in the body of many French words. But, whatever may be said against the rules in general, the two cases are in no way identical, as when two vowels meet in the body of a word the first vowel is invariably atonic (criér, criá, créér, avouér, tuér, &c.), and even occasionally the second (liaisón, &c.), the result being that the shock is considerably weakened in the first instance and almost totally annulled in the second, at any rate sufficiently so to prevent the concurrence of the vowels from producing an unpleasant sensation. |