PART II CHAPTER VII VERS LIBRES The varied arrangement of the rhymes, added to the varying length of the lines, makes it possible in lyrical and everyday poetry to reproduce every trick and every turn of the poet's fancy. The Alexandrine, despite the reforms it has undergone, has ever the dignity of the grand seigneur, and commands respect and obedience on the part of its wielder. It refuses to express the ideas of the humbler and more familiar poetry of everyday life, leaving its inferiors to fulfil these functions. It appears at times in their company, but by so doing loses somewhat of its lustre: it encroaches on the smaller fry and they on it, and thus it is deprived of some of its nobility of character. La Fontaine is the greatest of those who employed the vers libre in the seventeenth century. He was not alone; for Corneille in Agésilas and Psyché, Molière in Psyché and Amphitryon, Racine in the choruses of Esther and Athalie, and Quinault in his operas, made excellent use of it. The same may be said of J. B. Rousseau, Voltaire, Florian, and a few minores poetae in the eighteenth century, and of Musset and Richepin in the nineteenth. Of this intermingling of different lines and rhymes the poet's ear is the sole arbiter. Corneille and Molière intermingle lines of only six, eight, ten, and twelve syllables. Ex.: "Hélas! ce grand malheur dans la cour répandu, Voyez-le vous-même, princesse. Dans l'oracle qu'au roi les destins ont rendu 'Que l'on ne pense nullement A vouloir de Psyché conclure l'hyménée: Et que, de tous abandonnée, Pour époux elle attende en ces lieux constamment Un serpent qui répand son venin en tous lieux -Psyché, Act i. sc. 6. "Non, c'est la chose comme elle est Et point du tout conte frivole. Je suis homme d'honneur, j'en donne ma parole; Je vous dis que, croyant n'être qu'un seul Sosie, Et que de ces deux moi', piqués de jalousie, Que de battre et casser des os." -Molière, Amphitryon, ii. 1. La Fontaine uses every kind of line from that of two to that of twelve syllables, interweaving them in a most effective and harmonious way. In "Le Coche et la Mouche" (Selections, p. 156) we find rhymes known as plates, croisées, and embrassées. In the following table we have denoted the corresponding rhymes by the same letter, and the number of syllables in each line by a figure, in order to show the variety of his methods in the abovementioned fable: He has the gift also of adapting the length of his verse to the idea he wishes to express. manger “Même il m'est arriver quelquefois de croquer Le berger, Je me dévouerai donc, s'il le faut: mais je pense The second line of only three syllables is almost imperceptible, being lost between the two Alexandrines. In this way the lion shows how little importance he attaches to his crime. Similarly, in Fable V, x the dissyllabic line that ends the fable, coming after two ponderous Alexandrines, gives a sense of the disproportion between the oromise and the performance. "Je me figure un Auteur Qui dit: je chanterai la guerre Que firent les Titans au maître du Tonnerre. C'est promettre beaucoup: mais qu'en sort-il souvent? -La montagne qui accouche d'une souris. In the following, III, v: "Lève tes pieds en haut et tes cornes aussi. Puis, sur tes cornes m'élevant, Après quoi je t'en tirerai", Le Renard et le Bouc. the verse, with its parallel rungs, illustrates the use of the goat as a ladder. In "Le Chêne et le Roseau" the two octosyllabic lines— "L'arbre tient bon, le roseau plie. Le vent redouble ses efforts" mark the violence of the struggle between the wind on the one hand, and the oak and reed on the other. These are but a very few instances amongst many. There is not a single fable of La Fontaine in vers libres that does not bear some such impress of his genius. CHAPTER VIII A. THE STROPHE, THE STANZA, AND THE COUPLET-POEMS OF FIXED FORM COMPOSED OF ONE STANZA OR SEVERAL Instead of arranging his lines at random, while observing only the fundamental rules that govern the use of rhyme, the poet can arrange his lines in groups which obey fixed and definite laws; such groups are named strophes, stances, and couplets. These terms cannot be absolutely defined; we may, however, say that the term strophe is used to denote the principal components of the lyric poem such as the ode; the term stance denotes the main components of the moral or elegiac poem; while the term couplet in modern French poetry denotes the principal components of the song. In general, the strophes and the stances may consist of from two to twelve lines. The stanza may be isostichic, all lines having the same number of syllables; or heterostichic, the lines having a different number of syllables. 1. Two-lined stanza, or distich. It is either isostichic,1 e.g. "Voici ce que chante un vieux chant! "L'une dit à l'autre: Ma sœur, Pour nous la vie est sans douceur. "Vois combien vite en est le cours! 1 This is the simplest form of the strophe. The rhymes are necessarily always plates. They can only be distinguished from ordinary verse in rimes plates by the fact that in them the meaning is complete at the end of each pair of lines. For the terms iso- and hetero-stichic see Preface. "Mais l'autre lui répond: Ma sœur "A longue existence, longs soins, or heterostichic: -Richepin, La mer, Etant de quart, xxvi1 (La Causerie des Vagues). "A l'horizon chantait murmurante et confuse La chanson d'une cornemuse; "Des pâtres s'étaient pris par la main et dansaient, "A l'heure où le soleil vers l'océan décline, "Leur aïeule était là dont l'âge encor sourit, "Or tous deux, entraînés par la ronde folâtre "Et le soir vit, mêlés à ses rayons tremblants —Brizeux, Hist. poétiques, La Ronde Sainte. The distich is best suited to the epigram, the epitaph, and the inscription. Ex.: "Dans la fable et le conte il n'eut point de rivaux: Il peignit la nature et garda ses pinceaux". -(Distich written below a portrait of La Fontaine.) "Ci gît ma femme. Ah! qu'elle est bien Pour son repos et pour le mien!" -(Epitaph written by a husband above his wife's grave.) "Ci gît Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas même académicien." -Piron. Le Brun wrote the following epigram against Fanny de Beauharnais : "Eglé, belle et poète, a deux petits travers; Elle fait son visage et ne fait pas ses vers." The authorship of this distich was for some time unknown, 1 Published by Charpentier. By kind permission of the author and publisher. |