Ballades and Rondeaus, Chants Royal, Sestinas, Villanelles, etc.

by Unknown

[6] Mr. Andrew Lang, Longman's Magazine, April 1887.

The Ballade, in its normal type, consists of three stanzas of eight lines, followed by a verse of four lines, known as the envoy, or three verses of ten lines, with envoy of five, each of the stanzas and the envoy closing with the refrain. The most important rules for the ballade may be put briefly:—First, The same set of rhymes in the same order they occupy in the first stanza must repeat throughout the whole of its verses. Secondly, No word once used as a rhyme must be used again for that purpose in the whole length of the poem. Thirdly, Each stanza and the envoy must close with the refrain; the envoy always taking the same rhymes as the last half of the preceding verse, in the same order. For the eight-lined ballade, but three rhymes are allowable. In ordinary rhyme formula the sequence of these is A, B, A, B, B, C, B, C, for each of the three verses, and B, C, B, C, for the envoy. The importance of the refrain must now be noticed. Old writers and purists of our own time insist that the length of the refrain should govern not only the length of each line, but the number of the lines; in other words, that a refrain of eight syllables involves the choice of an eight-lined stanza, while the refrain of ten syllables demands a ten-lined verse. This is the strict rule of the ballade as written by Clement Marot, and by some modern writers; but it must be clearly understood that it is only the rule for the ideally pure form, and that variations in this respect are perfectly allowable. Now the importance of the refrain in one aspect is given, a still more vital point must be named—namely, that the sense of the refrain must be supreme throughout the ballade, the culminating line of each stanza always brought in without effort as the natural close of the verse. In the verses a special feature must not be overlooked, namely, that the stanza (of eight or ten lines, as the case may be) should carry an unbroken sense throughout, and not split into two verses of four lines or five lines, that are by chance printed as though they were one. The needful pauses for punctuation are of course allowed, but the sense should not finish at the end of the first quatrain (or quintain), but demand the rest of the verse to complete the idea presented. All these apparently trivial details must be regarded if the ballade is attempted. The advice given in Alice in Wonderland, "Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves," whether in that way or its inversion, "Take care of the sounds and the sense will take care of itself," is exactly the direct opposite of the true rule. Neither sense nor sound may be scamped here. If you neglect the sounds it is no ballade; if you neglect the sense—why write it at all? No one is compelled to use these complex forms, but if chosen, their laws must be obeyed to the letter if success is to be attained. The chief pleasure they yield consists in the apparent spontaneity, which is the result of genius, if genius be indeed the art of taking infinite pains; or, if that definition is rejected, they must yet exhibit the art which conceals art, whether by intense care in every minute detail, or a happy faculty for naturally wearing these fetters. The dance in chains must be skilful, the chains worn as decorative adjuncts, and the whole with as much apparent ease as the unfettered dancer could produce, or woe betide the unlucky wight who attempts to perform in them.

The Envoy is so peculiarly a feature of the Ballade and Chant Royal, that it is needful to draw our attention to the invocation which with it invariably commences. Of old this envoy was really addressed to the patron of the poet, or at least to the high dignitary to whom he dedicated his ballade. So that we find Prince! or Princess! Sire! or some mythical or symbolical personality invoked in the opening word. Often the person chosen was in very truth a noble of the rank assigned, but the custom of opening the envoy in this fashion grew so common that it lost its special fitness, and was often employed as a conventional ascription to those not of noble rank, while in some instances all the lovers' ballades intended for their own ladies were yet ascribed by the poets to the "Princess" of the court, who quite understood the fiction employed, and accepted praise of the golden hair and blue eyes of the rightful owner of the poem, while possibly her royal tresses were black and her eyes brown. In the number of ballades included in this collection the larger number will still be found to follow the old custom, which is so marked that the use of this dedication certainly carries out the spirit of the poem, in accordance with its original design. The envoy is not only a dedication, but should be the peroration of the subject, and richer in its wording and more stately in its imagery than the preceding verses, to convey the climax of the whole matter, and avoid the suspicion that it is a mere postscript, as it were, to the ballade.

In the ballade with stanzas of ten lines, usually of ten syllables each, four rhymes are permitted in this order—A, B, A, B, B, C, C, D, C, D, with C, C, D, C, D for the envoy. It is not needful to quote examples, or describe varieties with eight or ten-lined stanzas, that have lines of equal or unequal length, but in other respects follow all the true rules. De Gramont has observed that the strict laws of the ballade belong more to the prosodists who studied the form after it had ceased to be in current use, and that the writers of the ballade themselves frequently took great liberty. In some by Marot there are verses of eleven or twelve decasyllabic lines, and in poets who preceded him, some with thirteen and fourteen lines to the stanza, while the number of verses has also been flagrantly disregarded, some even using four or five verses, and still worse, having different rhymes to them; but in such cases the poem must not be regarded as an irregular ballade, nor a ballade at all, but simply as a set of verses with refrain.

The Ballade with double refrain, of which the "Frere Lubin" of Clement Marot is the only well-known example in old French, is said by Thomas Sibilet, in his Art Poétique, 1555, to be "autant rare que plaisante." Its point of difference is that a second refrain is introduced at the fourth line of each stanza, and the second of the envoy. This necessarily alters the order of the rhymes of the envoy. In the best known English example the rhyme order is A, B, A, B, B, C, B, C, with B, B, C, C, for the envoy. There are several in modern English, and some in recent French.

The Double Ballade consists of six stanzas of eight or ten lines, and is written usually without an envoy. The "Ballade of Dead Lions," in London, January 12, 1878, was the first English specimen; it is not quoted here, as its subject is now out of date. De Banville has written several. "Pour les bonnes gens," "Des sottises de Paris" are two in his "Trente-six Ballades Joyeuses" written in this form.

M. de Banville humorously reveals a secret of the poet's workshop, and gives a method to construct a "correct" ballade in a mechanical fashion, dispensing with genius, and easy to work—First, at one sitting write the last half of all the verses, and at another time the first half, then join them together, and the result will be an irremediably bad ballade; but elsewhere he writes, in all seriousness this time, "All the art is to bring in the refrain without effort, naturally, gaily, and at each time with novel effect and with fresh light cast on the central idea. 'Now you can' teach 'no one to do that, and M. de Banville never pretends to give any receipts for cooking rondels or ballades worth reading.' Without poetic vision all is mere marqueterie and cabinetmaker's work; that is, so far as poetry is concerned, nothing."[7]

[7] A. Lang on De Banville, New Quarterly Magazine, Oct. 1878.

The Chant Royal is now accepted by most writers as merely a larger form of the ballade, written with five verses of eleven lines, and envoi of five. De Gramont treats the idea to regard it as a distinct form as a mere fanciful attempt of prosodists, founded chiefly on the fact that Clement Marot has left four so named which conform to the above rule; but he shows that on the one hand there are ballades with stanzas of eleven lines, and on the other chants royal with ten only. It has been suggested that the Chant Royal derived its name from the subjects that are more usually dedicated to its use; but while these are generally sublime topics treated in dignified allegory, yet there are examples extant entirely devoid of these characteristics. Again, the idea that it owes its name to being a form selected for competition before the king for the dignity of laureate, and hence dubbed royal-song, he also rejects, and points out that its name simply denotes that it is the most excellent form of the ballade (as we might say, the "king of ballades" in English), one that, from the increased length, both in stanzas and number of lines in each, largely augments the difficulties of construction met with in the true ballade, and marks it as "the final tour de force of poetic composition." Henry de Croï derives the title of this form from the fact that persons excelling in the composition of chants royal were worthy to be crowned with garlands like conquerors and kings. It is a moot point with students whether the ballade or chant royal is the earlier and original poem. The chant royal in the old form is usually devoted to the unfolding of an allegory in its five stanzas, the envoy supplying the key; but this is not always observed in modern examples. Whatever be the subject, however, it must always march in stately rhythm with splendid imagery, using all the poetic adornments of sonorous, highly-wrought lines and rich embroidery of words to clothe a theme in itself a lofty one. Unless the whole poem is constructed with intense care, and has intrinsic beauty of its own of no mean order, the monotony of its sixty-one lines rhymed on five sounds is unbearable. In spite of the increased burden imposed by the necessity of so many similar rhymes, no shadow of "poetic" or other license must be taken. Nothing short of complete success can warrant the choice of this exacting form, which demands all that can be given to it; enriched with all the elaboration of consummate art in its every detail, and rising stanza by stanza, until the climax is reached in the envoy.

The laws of the ballade apply to the chant royal, with some added details of its own. The rhyme order is usually—a, b, a, b, c, c, d, d, e, d, e, with envoy of d, d, e, d, e. An example by Deschamps, "Sur le mort du Seigneur de Coucy," observes this order, a, b, a, b, b, c, c, d, c, d, and envoy, c, c, d, c, c, d. In either case the rhyme-order must be kept the same for each stanza, and the envoy commenced with an invocation as in the old ballades.