Lastly, it is to be remarked that the inequality of Modern English stanzas, which may be composed of two or three or several parts, admits, of course, of many varieties. Generally, however, their structure is somewhat analogous to that of the regular tripartite stanzas (cf. below, Book II, chap. vi).
In Romanic poetry the tripartite structure sometimes was carried on also through the whole song, it being composed either of three or six stanzas (that is to say, of three equal groups of stanzas), or, what is more usual, of seven or five stanzas (i.e. of two equal parts and an unequal part). In Middle English literary poetry, too, this practice is fairly common;[187] in Modern English poetry, on the other hand, it occurs only in the most recent times, being chiefly adopted in imitations of Romanic forms of stanza, especially the ballade.
§ 228. The envoi. Closely connected with the last-mentioned point, viz. the partition of the whole poem, is the structural element in German called Geleit, in Provençal poetry tornada (i.e. ‘turning’, ‘apostrophe’, or ‘address’), in Northern French poetry envoi, a term which was retained sometimes by Middle English poets as the title for this kind of stanza (occasionally even for a whole poem). The tornada used chiefly in the ballade is a sort of epilogue to the poem proper. It was a rule in Provençal poetry (observed often in Old French also) that it must agree in form with the concluding part of the preceding stanza. It was also necessary that with regard to its tenor it should have some sort of connexion with the poem; although, as a rule, its purpose was to give expression to personal feelings. The tornada is either a sort of farewell which the poet addresses to the poem itself, or it contains the order to a messenger to deliver the poem to the poet’s mistress or to one of his patrons; sometimes these persons are directly praised or complimented. In Middle English poetry the envoi mostly serves the same purposes. But there are some variations from the Provençal custom both as to contents and especially as to form.
§ 229. We may distinguish three kinds of so-called envois in Middle English poetry: (1) Real envois. (2) Concluding stanzas resembling envois as to their form. (3) Concluding stanzas resembling envois as to their contents.
The most important are the real envois. Of these, two subordinate species can be distinguished: (a) when the form of the envoi differs from the form of the stanza, as in Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 92, and even more markedly in Chaucer’s Compleynt to his Purse, a poem of stanzas of seven lines, the envoi of which addressed to the king consists of five verses only; (b) when the form of the envoi is the same as that of the other stanzas of the poem, as e.g. in Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 111 (a greeting to a mistress), in Dunbar’s Goldin Targe (address to the poem itself).
When the poem is of some length the envoi may consist of several stanzas; thus in Chaucer’s Clerkes Tale (stanzas of seven lines) the envoi has six stanzas of six lines each.
Concluding stanzas resembling envois in their form are generally shorter than the chief stanzas, but of similar structure. Generally speaking they are not very common. Specimens may be found in Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, pp. 38, 47, &c.
Concluding stanzas resembling envois in their contents. An example occurs in Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 31, where the concluding stanza contains an address to another poet. Religious poems end with addresses to God, Christ, the Virgin, invitations to prayer, &c.; for examples see Wright’s Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 111, and Hymns to the Virgin (ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S. 24), p. 39, &c. All these may possibly fall under this category.
Even in Modern English poetry the envoi has not quite gone out of use. Short envois occur in Spenser, Epithalamium; S. Daniel, To the Angel Spirit of Sir Philip Sidney (Poets, iv. 228); W. Scott, Marmion (Envoy, consisting of four-foot verses rhyming in couplets), Harold, Lord of the Isles, Lady of the Lake (Spenserian stanzas); Southey, Lay of the Laureate (x. 139–74), &c.; Swinburne, Poems and Ballads, i, pp. 1, 5, 141, &c.
Concluding stanzas resembling envois occur pretty often in poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Carew, Donne, Cowley, Waller, Dodsley, &c. (cf. Metrik, ii, p. 794 note).