CHAPTER IX THE STROPHE EXCEPTING vers libres, poets are under the obligation, in non-lyrical poetry, of making use throughout the piece of one and the same kind of verse on one of the systems of rimes already described. Instances in which this prescription is not observed are not lacking in Old French, however. Thus Philippe de Thaün, after writing the first 1418 lines of the Bestiaire (c. 1130) in lines of six syllables, used the octosyllabic line in the remaining 153. The same peculiarity is also observable in the rimed chronicle, Le Roman de Rou, of Wace, and in the Chemin de Lonc Estude of the poetess Christine de Pisan. But there is another rhythmic process proper to lyrical poetry, which consists in dividing the whole poem into a certain number of component parts, presenting the same disposition of measures and the same gender (masc. or fem. rime) in corresponding places. Each of these parts is called a stanza or strophe. The poet is at liberty to use one and the same metre throughout the strophe, in which case the strophe is known as isometric; but he may with equal propriety employ two (rarely more) different kinds of lines, in which case the strophe is known as heterometric. Generally speaking, strophes, whether isometric or heterometric, are not mixed in the same poem, but it not infrequently happens, especially in the Ode, that a certain strophic combination is abandoned at a given moment, according to the promptings of emotional necessity. In the strophes composed by the French classical poets there is a careful observance of the so-called règle des repos intérieurs, according to which strophes of five lines have a pause after the second verse, those of six lines after the third verse, those of seven and eight lines after the fourth verse, those of nine and ten lines one pause after the fourth verse and a second pause after the seventh, those of eleven lines one pause after the fourth verse, the other after the eighth verse. These rules, which were established by Malherbe, and his pupils Maynard and Racan, have since been disregarded, as calculated to produce the impression of the juxtaposition of several shorter strophes and as impairing the unity of the rhythmic period. The O.F. poets and those of the sixteenth century sometimes composed their strophes wholly on rimes plates : Et lors en France avec toy je chantay, Et, jeune d'ans, sur le Loir inventay Et des grands roys les honneurs et leurs gloires. Je t'envoyay sous le pouce angevin Qui depuis moi t'a si bien fredonnée Qu'à lui tout seul la gloire en soit donnée. (Ronsard, Poés. Chois., p. 99.) This practice was abandoned by Malherbe and the poets of his school, and has not since been revived, for the evident reason that such productions have no raison d'être in strophic poetry. A few exceptions to this rule are found here and there in modern poets: O mon Ronsard, ô maître O sublime échanson De la chanson ! (Banville, Rimes Dorées, p. 227.) More notable is the use of rimes plates throughout Musset's Mardoche, composed of ten-line strophes: J'ai connu l'an dernier un jeune homme nommé O prodige! il n'avait jamais lu de sa vie Monsieur de Metternich; quand il avait fini (Premières Poésies, p. 111.) It is not our intention to enquire minutely into the origins of the French strophe. Such an investigation, involving as it would a comparison with the strophic forms of the troubadours, does not fall within the scope of the present volume. A few general indications must suffice. The most primitive poetry of all nations was certainly lyrical, and intended to be sung in accompaniment to the dance. In the rendering of the earliest Romance lyric songs, it is probable that the solo and chorus alternated, and that the rôle of the chorus, at first at all events, consisted only in the repetition of that part of the song sung by the soloist. Thus the earliest form of the strophe must have consisted of one line and its repetition. From this rudimentary form were evolved the simple strophes of early French popular poetry, which consist of three, four, five, or six monoassonanced verses at most, with a short refrain. Unfortunately only scattered fragments (frequently refashioned) of these graceful romances have come down to us-Rainaud, Orior, Belle Idoine, Belle Doette, &c. A strophe from Rainaud is appended: Sire Raynaut, je m'en escondirai : A cent puceles sor sainz vos jurerai, Also one from Belle Doette: (Bartsch, Rom. und Past., p. i.) Bele Doette as fenestres se siet, Lit en un livre, mais au cuer ne l'en tient: De son ami Doon li ressovient, Qu'en autres terres est alez tornoier. E or en ai dol. (Ibid. p. 5.) In Orior the strophe is of three lines only, and the refrain of two: Lou samedi a soir, fat la semaine, Gaiete et Oriour, serors germainnes, Ki s'antraimment soweif dorment. (Ibid. p. 8.) Although these popular romances do not seem to have continued beyond the twelfth century, such short monoriming strophes are found throughout the O.F. period, more especially in didactic and religious poetry: Cil Diex qui par sa mort vout la mort d'enfer mordre (Rutebeuf, p. 59.) Pur l'iglise del Nort e en l'ele del Nort E vers le Nort tornez suffrit sainz Thomas mort. (Garnier du Pont Ste.-Maxence 1.) From the earliest times, however, and increasingly as poetry became literary, many other more complicated strophic forms were introduced by splitting the longer lines into parts, by repeating or intercalating members of simpler strophes, and by introducing single additional lines in different parts of existing combinations. From the twelfth century onward, a large number of types were also borrowed from the highly developed and artistic poetry of the troubadours, who found ready and skilful imitators in the trouvères of the north of France. In the Middle Period of French there was a great decrease, not only in poetic talent, but also in poetic invention. The poets of this period abandoned the majority of the more graceful and ingenious strophes of Old French lyrical poetry, and those they did keep they elaborated past recognition into poems with a fixed form. No great improvement is discernible in the variety of strophes used till the advent of the Pléiade, and especially of their leader Ronsard, who, during his long and brilliant career, attempted more than a hundred different strophic combinations. Malherbe only selected a few of Ronsard's strophes, erecting them into stereotyped forms beyond which the poet was not to wander, and left the rest to fall into oblivion, till they were revived in greater part by the Romanticists, who in their turn have invented a certain number and borrowed a few others from foreign literatures. As practically all the measures that exist in French poetry can be used in the strophe, either alone or combined with any other line, it can be readily imagined how large and varied is the number of strophes at the poet's disposal. Speaking of this almost inexhaustible treasure of poetic invention, Théodore de Banville says in his Petit Traité2: Il faudrait être un Homère pour les énumérer, même en ne choisissant que celles qui sont solides et belles.... Dans une vie de poète, on a à peine le temps de les étudier et on n'a jamais l'occasion de les employer toutes. Generally speaking, the strophe in French poetry does not comprise more than twelve lines, although strophes of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, and even twenty lines can be found in the works of Ronsard. With modern poets, however, strophes of more than twelve lines, such as those of thirteen occurring in Victor de Laprade's Corybantes1, or of seventeen and nineteen lines, as in André Chénier's Jeu de Paume, are merely experiments, more or less able and interesting. The reason for this observance is that if the strophe is too extensive it becomes difficult for the reader to grasp the ensemble of the rhythmic period. It follows from the above remarks that it would be impossible, in a book of this scope, to exhaust all the different types of the French strophe. Our purpose will be served by giving examples of the more usual types, dividing them into isometric and heterometric strophes. It has already been mentioned that it is a rule, both of Old and Modern French strophic poetry proper, that the rimes of the same lines in corresponding strophes must have the same gender (masc. or fem. rime). In Modern French strophic poetry, though the rimes have the same gender, the rimes themselves change from strophe to strophe. In O.F., on the contrary, this method is very rare. It was much more usual to carry on the rimes of the first strophe throughout the remaining strophes of the whole poem 5: La douche vois del rosignol salvage K'oi nuit et jor chantoier et tentir Se ne li os mon penser descovrir; 1 Odes et Poèmes, p. 141. 2 Poésies, p. xcv. 3 For a few exceptions in Old and Middle French see Tobler, p. 16 sqq. + Cf. De Coucy, ed. Fath., no. xv. 5 Cf. De Coucy, no. xii, and Gautier d'Épinal, ed. Lindelöf et Wallensköld, nos. vi, ix, xii, and xiii. |