studiously avoided the epic cesura, and that its exclusion from French poetry dates from him and was due largely to his influence 1. The first theorist to declare himself positively against les couppes feminines, s'ilz ne sont synalimphées (elided), was Fabri, in the Grand et Vray Art de Pleine Rhétorique, published in 1521. His opinion was combated by Gracien du Pont in his Art et Science de Rhétorique metrifiée3 (1539), but Du Pont, although his arguments are excellent, was championing a cause already hopelessly lost. Ten years later Marot's action was definitely confirmed and approved by Sibilet for the Alexandrine as well as for the decasyllabic line in an important passage of his Art Poétique: Voilà tout ce que je te puy dire de la couppe femenine, laquelle non observée des anciens, ne de Marot en son jeune eage (comme il t'averty mesmes en une epistre liminaire imprimée devant ses œuvres), toutefois est aujourd'huy gardée inviolablement par tous les bons Poëtes de ce temps: & la doit estre par toy, ne fut que pour eviter le son absurde, pour lequel sont moins prisés aujourd'huy aucuns Poëtes qui ne l'observent: bien que autrement soient loués de leur composition. From that date the fate of the epic cesura was sealed, and the isolated examples of it, which occur in a few of the minor poets of the second 1 Paul Meyer has established that the anonymous author of Brun de la Montagne (cf. p. xv of the Introduction of Meyer's edition), a roman d'aventure of the fourteenth century, had carefully and consciously avoided the use of the epic cesura, thus anticipating Lemaire de Belges by more than a century, but the fact remains that the example of this anonymous author passed unnoticed at the time. 2 ed. Héron, ii. p. 101. Cf. ii. p. 97 for a fuller statement on the part of Fabri. 3 fol. Io, vo. It will be noticed hereafter that the Alexandrine had been almost entirely discarded in the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century; the few lines of that measure which occur previous to Clément Marot, however, still present a large proportion of epic cesuras, as, for example, in the Voyage de Venise of Jean Marot (1463-1527), Clément's father: Ung samedi matin, de May unziesme jour Environ les quatre heu-res, | le Roy, sans long séjour, Faict sonner mettez sel-les, gendarmes à cheval; Troupes, tabours reson-nent | tant d'amont que d'aval. See Euvres de Jean Marot, ed. A. Coustelier, Paris, 1723, p. 102 sqq. Cf. also p. 127 sqq. and p. 140 sqq. ed. 1556, pp. 39-40. half of the sixteenth century, are due either to carelessness or to technical ignorance. Whatever may have been the reasons which induced French poets to eschew the epic cesura, it cannot be denied that French poetry has lost in variety by its abandonment 1. IV. The second variety of feminine cesura found in Old and Middle French is known as the lyric cesura (césure lyrique), because it occurs almost exclusively in lyrical poetry. In this kind of cesura the accent which immediately precedes the cesura is made to fall on a syllable atonic by nature, and that syllable is counted in the number of syllables composing the line. The explanation of the lyrical cesura is to be found in the fact that every syllable had to have its full value in poetry that was originally intended to be sung to music, otherwise it would not have been adaptable to musical composition : Mais ma dame | ne quiert si mon mal non. (De Coucy, No. x. 1. 29.) Ains ke fusse sospris de cheste amour. (Conon de Béthune, p. 221, 1. 12.) Se ne fussent | li felon esbahi. (Gautier d'Epinal, p. 80, l. 162.) The lyric cesura is especially characteristic of the poets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries-Machaut, Froissart, Eustache Deschamps, Alain Chartier, Charles d'Orléans, Villon, &c. A casual reference to any of these poets will afford plenty of examples: 1 This opinion is shared by many eminent Frenchmen, including Littré and Gaston Paris. The latter says in his Etude sur le rôle de l'accent latin, p. 109: Elle (la loi de ne pas compter une syllabe muette après la pause) était fondée sur une connaissance très juste de la nature de la langue française, et elle avait le mérite, tout en laissant subsister la cadence, d'introduire quelque variété dans la monotonie de nos vers. All those who read Italian and Spanish poetry, and know what beautiful effects can be attained by the use of the paroxytonic hemistich, will readily endorse the opinion of the famous French philologist. 2 I have calculated that the percentage of lyric cesuras in some of the most important trouvères is as follows: Gautier d'Epinal Conon de Béthune = 11 per cent. per cent. 51⁄2 per cent. Consequently the lyric cesura is much less frequent in O.F. lyric poetry than is the epic cesura in O.F. epic poetry. It began to lose ground rapidly at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the fact that it was carefully shunned by Crétin, the most influential poet of the time, was not calculated to improve its position. It still occurs in the poetry of Pierre Gringoire (1480-1544) more especially, and of Jean Marot, as well as in that of a few of their contemporaries, but not a single case occurs in the works of Clément Marot. It is to him consequently that may be ascribed the credit of having banished a cesura from French poetry which, whatever may have been its justification when lyrical poetry was inseparable from music, had become meaningless long before his time. Occasionally in O.F. and in Middle French hiatus occurs between the final atonic e of the lyric feminine cesura and the initial vowel of the second hemistich. Such lines can easily be detected by the fact that if elision were applied they would lack one syllable: De vos dame, a cui amors me rent. Chiere dame, a qui j'ai tout donné. (De Coucy, p. 62, 1. 39.) (Froissart, Poésies, ii. p. 406.) mais pourrir Y porroie attendant que merir (Christine de Pisan, Œuv. Poet. i. p. 87.) This kind of cesura, termed the hiatus lyric cesura, died out about the same time as the ordinary lyric cesura. The only French theorist to mention it is Pierre Fabri, who after combating the feminine cesura in general makes a reservation which, though lacking in preciseness, is interesting as a statement of fact1: Mais il est des termes feminins desquels l'en est si fort contrainct que necessairement il fault qu'ilz soient en couppe, et feroit l'on bien de s'en abstenir 1 Le grand et vrai art de pleine rhétorique, ed. Héron, ii. p. 98. qui pourroit, mais se aulcuns y en avoit et le mot subsequent se commençoit par vocal, encor ne le fault il point synalimpher. Exemple: Vierge mere et fille especialle, Clere estoille, en paradis luysante, &c. V. Corresponding to the pause in the rhythm there must also be a pause in the sense, and the cesura must mark not only the end of a rhythmical member but also of a syntactic and logical member. In other words, the cesura must not be made to separate words which are closely connected grammatically and logically, such as the article, adjective or preposition, and the noun; the auxiliary and past participle, modal verbs and the infinitive of other verbs, the preposition de and the noun, adjective, or participle on which it depends, &c. The principle involved is that if the logical pause were stronger than, and in conflict with, the rhythmical pause the latter would be effaced and thereby the nature of the line rendered unrecognizable. But if the complement of such words fills up the whole of the second hemistich the danger of a rival pause is avoided, and in that case the two words can perfectly well be separated. Thus the following examples are in strict conformity with the rules of the most rigorous of French theorists: Les prêtres ne pouvaient | suffire aux sacrifices. (Racine, Athalie, 1. 12.) Un jeune enfant couvert | d'une robe éclatante. (Ibid., 1. 508.) Vous m'en aviez déjà | confié votre joie. (Ibid., 1. 867.) Un bruit, que j'ai pourtant | soupçonné de mensonge. (Ibid., 1. 967.) Jéhu n'a point un cœur | farouche, inexorable. Tout a fui, tous se sont | séparés sans retour. Ce formidable amas | de lances et d'épées. (Ibid., 1. 1071.) (Ibid., 1. 1102.) (Ibid., 1. 1180.) This precept that the meaning must correspond to the rhythmical pause was carefully observed by O. F. poets. Those of the sixteenth century were aware of its importance, and on the whole did not often offend against it. Du Bellay in the Deffence et Illustration de la Langue Françoyse says: J'ay quasi oublié un autre default bien usité et de tresmauvaise grace. C'est quand en la quadrature des Vers Heroïques la sentence est trop abruptement couppée, comme: 'Si non que tu en montres un plus seur1,' and Ronsard expresses the same opinion in the Abrégé de l'Art Poétique: Sur toute chose je te veux bien advertir, s'il est possible (car toujours on ne faict pas ce qu'on propose), que les quatre premières syllabes du vers commun ou les six premières syllabes des Alexandrins, soient façonnées d'un sens, aucunement parfait, sans l'emprunter du mot suivant. Exemple du sens parfait: 'jeune beauté maistresse de ma vie.' Exemple du vers qui a le sens imparfait: 'L'homme qui a esté dessus la mer 2' The first poet to apply Ronsard's recommendation rigorously was Malherbe both in his own poetry and in his criticism of Desportes' verse. Later this principle was formulated by Boileau in the well-known lines of the Art Poétique: Que toujours dans vos vers le sens coupant les mots Suspende l'hémistiche, en marque le repos. (11. 105-6.) It was looked upon as binding by all French poets till the beginning of the nineteenth century, since which time it has to a large extent been disregarded, although a not inconsiderable proportion of the infringements generally quoted against the Romantic poets and subsequent poetic schools are due to the fact that theorists have been misled into reading their bicesural lines-the so-called Romantic Alexandrine especially-as if they were classical Alexandrines, and consequently only admitted of one pause. Thus 3: L'Alexandrin saisit | la césure, et la mord. (V. Hugo.) (Ibid.) (Ibid.) Instead of: L'Alexandrin | saisit la césure, | et la mord. Or: L'habilleuse avec des | épingles dans la bouche. Ayez pitié, je n'ai | pas mangé, je vous jure. Where obviously the right scanning is: (Coppée.) (Manuel.) 1 ed. Person, p. 142. 2 Euvres, vii. p. 331. 3 Tobler, p. 134. |