ii. 60-8), a poem in which he has given one of the most brilliant

specimens of his skill in rhyming. It consists of twelve twelve-lined stanzas and a six-lined envoy. The first two stanzas rhyme _a b c A B d C e f E D F_, _F a f D A C b e c E d B_; the envoy on the scheme

_(F) E (e) f (C) A (c) d (b) a (D) B_;

where the corresponding capital and small letters denote different words rhyming with each other. Cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 581.

§ =322.=. Side by side with these well-known poems of fixed form, mostly constructed on Italian models, there are some others influenced by French poetry which have been introduced into English for the most part by contemporary modern poets, as e.g. Swinburne, Austin Dobson, Robert Bridges, D.G. Rossetti, A. Lang, and E.W. Gosse[205]. These are the virelay, roundel, rondeau, triolet, villanelle, ballade, and chant royal. The =virelay= seems to have been in vogue in earlier English poetry. Chaucer, e.g. in his _Legende of good Women_, v. 423, says of himself that he had written _balades_, _roundels_, and _virelayes_. But only isolated specimens of it have been preserved; in more recent times it has not been imitated at all.

According to Lubarsch[206] the virelay consists of verses of unequal length, joined by _concatenatio_ so as to form stanzas of nine lines on the scheme: _a a b a a b a a b, b b c b b c b b c, c c d c c d c c d, &c._

Apart from this, however, there were undoubtedly other forms in existence (cf. Bartsch, _Chrestomathie de l'ancien français_, p. 413). Morris, in the Aldine edition of Chaucer's Works, vol. vi, p. 305, gives a virelay of two-foot iambic verses in six-lined stanzas on the model

_a a a b a a a b, b b b c b b b c c c c d c c c d_, &c.

(quoted _Metrik_, i, § 155).

§ =323.=. The =roundel=, used by Eustache Deschamps, Charles d'Orléans, and others, was introduced into English poetry, it seems, by Chaucer. But there are only a few roundels of his in existence; one of these occurs in _The Assembly of Fowles_ (ll. 681-8); if the verses of the burden are repeated, as printed in the Globe Edition, pp. 638-9, it has thirteen lines (=a b b= _a b_ =a b= _a b b_ =a b b=, the thick types showing the refrain-verses):

_Now welcom, somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres weders overshake And driven awey the longe nyghtes blake;_

_Seynt Valentyn, that art ful by on lofte, Thus syngen smale foules for thy sake: Now welcom, somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres weders overshake._

_Wel han they cause for to gladen ofte, Sith ech of hem recovered hath his make; Ful blisful mowe they ben when they awake. Now welcom, somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres weders overshake And driven awey the longe nyghtes blake._

Three other roundels of Chaucer on the scheme last mentioned have been published lately by Skeat in _Chaucer's Minor Poems_, pp. 386-7; some other Middle English roundels were written by Hoccleve and Lydgate.

In French the roundel was not always confined to one particular metre, nor did it always consist of a fixed number of verses; the same may be said of the English roundels.

The essential condition of this form, as used by the French poets, was that two, three, or four verses forming a refrain must recur three times at fixed positions in a tripartite isometrical poem consisting mostly of thirteen or fourteen four- or five-foot verses. A common form of the French roundel consisted of fourteen octosyllabic verses on the model

_=a b= b a a b =a b= a b b a =a b=._

Conforming to this scheme is a roundel by Lydgate[207]:

_Rejoice ye reames of England and of Fraunce! A braunche that sprange oute of the floure de lys, Blode of seint Edward and [of] seint Lowys, God hath this day sent in governaunce._

_God of nature hath yoven him suffisaunce Likly to atteyne to grete honure and pris. Rejoice ye reames of England and of Fraunce! A braunche hath sprung oute of the floure de lys._

_O hevenly blossome, o budde of all plesaunce, God graunt the grace for to ben als wise As was thi fader, by circumspect advise, Stable in vertue withoute variaunce. Rejoice ye reames of England and of Fraunce, A braunche hath sprung oute of the floure de lys._

Another roundel of four-foot verses, by Lydgate (Ritson, i. 129), corresponds to _=a b= a b a b =a b= a b a b =a b=_ (cf. _Metrik_, i, § 180); some other roundels, of a looser structure, consisting, seemingly, of ten lines, are quoted in the same place (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 583).

A Modern English roundel of fourteen lines, constructed of three-foot verses, by Austin Dobson, has the scheme _=a b= a b b a =a b= a b a b_ =a b= (quoted ib. § 583). The French roundel of thirteen lines may be looked upon as a preliminary form to the rondeau, which was developed from the roundel at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century.

§ =324.= The =rondeau= is a poem consisting of thirteen lines of eight or ten syllables, or four or five measures. It has three stanzas of five, three, and five lines, rhyming on the scheme _a a b b a a a b a a b b a_. It has, moreover, a refrain which is formed by the first words of the first line, and recurs twice, viz. after the eighth and thirteenth verses, with which it is syntactically connected. Strictly speaking it therefore has fifteen lines, corresponding to the scheme _a a b b a a a b_ + _r a a b b a_ + _r_. The rondeau was much cultivated by the French poet, Clément Marot. It was introduced into English by Wyatt, from whom the rondeau _Complaint for True Love unrequited_ (p. 23) may be quoted here:

_What 'vaileth truth, or by it to take pain? To strive by steadfastness for to attain How to be just, and flee from doubleness? Since all alike, where ruleth craftiness, Rewarded is both crafty, false, and plain._

_Soonest he speeds that most can lie and feign: True meaning heart is had in high disdain, Against deceit and cloaked doubleness, What 'vaileth truth?_

_Deceived is he by false and crafty train, That means no guile, and faithful doth remain Within the trap, without help or redress: But for to love, lo, such a stern mistress, Where cruelty dwells, alas, it were in vain. What 'vaileth truth?_

This is the proper form of the rondeau. Other forms deviating from it are modelled on the schemes:

_a a b b a b b a_ + _r b b a a b_ + _r_ (Wyatt, p. 24), _a a b b a_ + _r c c b_ + _r a a b b a_ + _r_ (ib. p. 26), _a b b a a b_ + _r a b b a_ + _r_ (D. G. Rossetti, i. 179).

Austin Dobson, Robert Bridges, and Theo. Marzials strictly follow the form quoted above.

Another form of the rondeau entirely deviating from the above is found in Swinburne, _A Century of Roundels_,[208] where he combines verses of the most varied length and rhythm on the scheme _ABA_ + _b BAB ABA_ + _b_ where _b_ denotes part of a verse, rhyming with the second, but repeated from the beginning of the first verse and consisting of one or several words (cf. _Metrik_, ii, §§ 584, 585).

§ =325.= The triolet and the villanelle are unusual forms occurring only in modern poets, e.g. Dobson and Gosse.

The =triolet=, found as early as in Adenet-le-Roi at the beginning of the thirteenth century, is a short poem of eight mostly octosyllabic verses, rhyming according to the formula =a b= _a_ =a= _a b_ =ab=, the first verse recurring as a refrain in the fourth, the first and second together in the seventh and eighth place. Two specimens have been quoted, _Metrik_, ii, § 586.

§ =326.= The =villanelle= (a peasant song, rustic ditty, from _villanus_) was cultivated by Jean Passerat (1534-1602); in modern poetry by Th. de Banville, L. Baulmier, &c. It mostly consists of octosyllabic verses divided into five stanzas (sometimes a larger or smaller number) of three lines plus a final stanza of four lines, the whole corresponding to the scheme =a=¹ _b_ =a=² + _a b_ =a=¹ + _a b_ =a=² + _a b_ =a=¹ + _a b_ =a=² + _a b_ =a=¹ =a=². Hence the first and the third verses of the first stanza are used alternately as a refrain to form the last verse of the following stanzas, while in the last stanza both verses are used in this way. A villanelle by Gosse on this model consisting of eight stanzas, perhaps the only specimen in English literature, has been quoted, _Metrik_, ii, § 587.

§ =327.= The =ballade= is a poetical form consisting of somewhat longer stanzas all having the same rhymes. Several varieties of it existed in Old French poetry. The two most usual forms are that with octosyllabic and that with decasyllabic lines. The first form is composed of three stanzas of eight lines on the model _a b a b b c b C_ (cf. § 269). The rhymes in each stanza agree with those of the corresponding lines in the two others, the last line, which is identical in all the three, forming the refrain; this refrain-verse recurs also at the end of the _envoi_, which corresponds in its structure to the second half of the main stanza, according to the formula _b c b C_. The decasyllabic form has three stanzas of ten verses on the scheme _a b a b b c c d c D_ (cf. § 271), and an _envoi_ of five verses on the scheme _c c d c D_; the same rules holding good in all other respects as in the eight-lined form. It is further to be observed that the _envoi_ began, as a rule, with one of the words _Prince_, _Princesse_, _Reine_, _Roi_, _Sire_, either because the poem was addressed to some personage of royal or princely rank, or because, originally, this address referred to the poet who had been crowned as 'king' in the last poetical contest.

In England also the ballade had become known as early as in the fourteenth century. We have a collection of ballades composed in the French language by Gower,[209] consisting of stanzas of either eight or seven (_rhyme royal_) decasyllabic verses with the same rhyme throughout the poem. Similar to the French are Chaucer's English ballades in his Minor Poems, which, however, in so far differ from the regular form, that the _envoi_ consists of five, six, or seven lines; in some of the poems even there is no _envoi_ at all. Accurate reproductions of the Old French ballade are not found again until recent times. There are examples by Austin Dobson and especially by Swinburne _(A Midsummer Holiday_, London, 1884). They occur in both forms, constructed as well of four- and five-foot iambic, as of six-, seven-, or eight-foot trochaic or of five- and seven-foot iambic-anapaestic verses. (For specimens cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 588.)

§ =328.= The =Chant Royal= is an extended ballade of five ten-lined ballade-stanzas (of the second form mentioned above), instead of three, together with an _envoi_. In Clément Marot we meet with another form of five eleven-line stanzas of decasyllabic verses also with the same rhymes throughout; the _envoi_ having five lines. The scheme is _a b a b c c d d e d E_ in the stanzas and _d d e d E_ in the _envoi_.

A Chant Royal by Gosse, composed on this difficult model (perhaps the only specimen to be found in English poetry), is quoted _Metrik_, ii, § 589.

A more detailed discussion of these French poetical forms of a fixed character and of others not imitated in English poetry may be found in Kastner's _History of French Versification_ (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1903), chapter x. Cf. also Edmund Stengel, _Romanische Verslehre_, in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_ (Strassburg, 1893), vol. ii, pp. 87 ff.

NOTES:

[204] See Chaucer's Works, edited by W. W. Skeat, _Minor Poems_, pp. 75-6, 310-11.

[205] Cf. the essay by Gosse in _The Cornhill Magazine_, No. 211, July, 1877, pp. 53-71.

[206] _Französische Verslehre_, Berlin, 1879, p. 388.

[207] Ritson's _Ancient Songs_, i. 128, written, it is true, in five-foot verses; the repetition of the two refrain-verses in the proper place, however, is not indicated in the edition, and a slight emendation of the text is also required by the sense, viz. _hath sprung_ instead of _that sprang_ in the last line.

[208] London, Chatto & Windus, 1833.

[209] _The Works of John Gower_, ed. G. C. Macaulay, Oxford, 1899, vol. i, pp. 335 ff.

OXFORD: HORACE HART M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

Transcriber's Notes

Footnotes have been moved to the end of the each chapter, and renumbered consecutively to be unique. The sole footnote reference on p. 250 was mis-numbered, and is corrected here as footnote 173.

The unicode character set available to render the various typographical features may not be complete. Your reading device may not have the full complement of fonts required to render all the characters.

Italicized words or phrases are rendered using underscore characters as _italic_. Any text printed in a bold font will appear as =bold=.

All poetry was printed in italic. To highlight alliteration effects, some characters were printed using a normal, bold font. In other places, to indicate special rythyms, such as spondees in an otherwise iambic line, the author used a normal font, without a bold weight, to show the secondary stress. These vowels will be delimited with '+'. For simplicity's sake, the line or lines will be _italicized_, and the highlighted characters will be marked within: e.g.,

_=m=ōdum lufien | he is =m=ægna spēd_,

where the initial 'm' is printed in bold, normal font.

'_The séa is at ébb, | and the sóund of her útmost wórd, Is sóft as the l+éa+st w+a+ve's lápse | in a stíll sm+a+ll r+éa+ch. From báy into báy, | on quést of a góal deférred, From héadland éver to héadland | and bréach to bréach, Where éarth gives éar | to the méssage that áll days préach._'

Here, the entire verse is italic, but the +vowels+ are printed in a normal, but not bold font. Note that the vertical bars, in the original, are never italicized.

In sections § 25-30, the subtypes of line types A, B, C, etc. are printed as 'A1', but in later sections these are printed as subscripts. Both are given here as 'A1', etc.

In the stanza notation employed in Book II, Chapter III, the number of feet in a line are indicated as in italics, using single letters with subscripts (both lower- and uppercase):

_a a₄ b₃ c c₄ b₃_

Rhyming patterns can use extra spaces, which are indicated with non-breaking spaces:

_a b b a a b b a c d e d e c₅ c₃ f f₅ f₃ g g₅_

There is also one superscripted '4', unsupported by this character set, which uses the carat (^), e.g., 'Phonetik_^4'.

There are cases where punctuation, spelling or spacing seem questionable, particularly in quoted matter. Where possible, these have been checked against images of the sources Schipper used. Corrections made to the text are as follows:

p. 46 Beow. 499[,] 1542, 2095, 2930 Missing comma added.

p. 53 _ges[c´/é]aft_ The accent on 'c' is likely a printer's error.

p. 76 _-en_, _-es_, _[-]eþ_ Added missing hyphen.

p. 88 J. A. 31[.] Added missing stop.

p. 100 _Nou haþ =p=rúde þe =p=[r´i/rí]s_ The accent on 'r' is likely misplaced.

p. 128 _Chambers's Cyclop. of Eng. Lit[.]_, Missing '.' in abbreviation.

p. 156 _in váyn_: _s[d/á]yen_ Sur. 31; Probable printer's error.

p. 168 _prayer: p[r]ayr_ Missing 'r' inserted.

p. 169 _carry 'em_ (_=carry them_[)] Closing ')' inserted.

p. 205 _How féw to g[oó/óo]d efféct_ Accent should appear on first vowel.

p. 216 that búd and blóom forth[ ]bríngs Missing space inserted.

p. 224 (1550-1700),['] Spurious apostrophe removed.