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

by Unknown

The Roundel, which, it must again be said, is simply a variation of the rondeau, and not a distinct form, is grouped apart in this collection for the sake of convenience. Since Mr. Swinburne devoted a volume, entitled A Century of Roundels, to this particular form of the rondeau, it has been used by other writers, and the name applied by him has been kept by those who chose to follow the same form. Probably Mr. Swinburne, during his readings in early French poetry, found poems of this shape extant, or it may be that, for reasons of his own, he formulated this variety, which slightly differs from any I have been able to find. In Marot's De l'Amoureux Ardant there is a likeness to this shape, and in Villon's Mort there is also a resemblance, but Mr. Swinburne's roundel has eleven lines always, while Villon's has twelve, rhyming a.b.b. a.a.b. refrain, a.b.b.a. refrain. Again, Mr. Swinburne's roundel not only has a new rhyme order, A.B.A. refrain; B.A.B.; A.B.A. refrain; but when the refrain consists of more than a single word it rhymes with the B lines. The rhythm, too, of Mr. Swinburne's are in every possible and—in any hands but his—impossible variety. The lines vary from four to sixteen syllables, but are generally identical in length in the same roundel. As an experiment in rhythm the Century of Roundels will, no doubt, always command attention, and there are not wanting signs that his Roundel, keeping its length and other details, may become a recognised shape in English verse; but it must be distinctly understood that Mr. Swinburne is responsible for its introduction, and to him, not to the early French poets, must be awarded the honour of its invention, unless he himself refers it to an earlier source for its authority; but it may be that with admiration for the old shapes, he yet saw that for English use a variation was preferable, and so rearranged the lines and the refrain of the olden form in the way he considered best suited to our tongue.

The Rondelet is a little form not noticed in De Gramont or De Banville. Boulmier has printed several in his "Poésies en language du XVe. Siècle" at the end of his volume, entitled Les Villanelles. Here is one.

François Villon,
Sur tous rithmeurs, à qui qu'en poise,
François Villon
Du mieulx disant eut le guerdon
Né de Paris empres Pontoise
Il ne féit oncq vers à la toise
François Villon.

Here we find he adopts a seven-line stanza with four eight-syllable lines, and three of four syllables on two rhymes, a, b, a, a, b, b, a. While strongly resembling the triolet and the early rondel, it yet seems worth noting as a pretty variety for trifling subjects. There are several in English verse.

The Rondeau Redoublé would fail to suggest kinship with either form of the Rondeau, did not it include the name in its designation, as De Banville notes. It is probable that many more poems were grouped under the word Rondeau than we now are able to trace. The one we are now describing is in no way a doubled rondeau, and hardly suggests that form more than any of these that have the features of limited rhyme sounds, and more or less frequent reiteration of a refrain. The Rondeau Redoublé is written in six octosyllabic quatrains, rhyming on two alternate rhymes, with half the initial line used (unrhymed) after the last verse. Its one distinctive feature is this:—Each line of the first quatrain is used again in the same order to serve for the last line of verses two, three, four, and five; while the last line of the sixth has a new wording for itself, but takes, in addition, a final refrain of the first half of the initial line of the poem to conclude the whole. As the rhymes of the first quatrain are a. b. a. b., it must necessarily—to use as refrain the first line rhyming on a—reverse the order for the second verse, which is therefore b. a. b. a., and so on alternately until the end of the rondeau redoublé. Specimens of its use are extant by Marot, La Fontaine, Benserade, and others, while in modern French it is not infrequent, but in English it is rare. The examples quoted in this book comprise all that diligent search could discover except one of too fugitive a character to reprint. As the poems written in this form in English show the rules of the verse as plainly as the original French, it has not been thought needful to quote one in its native tongue, especially as De Gramont, De Banville, and Jullien reprint specimens in their handbooks. A form so simple that, if well wrought, and the refrain brought in with skill, it can be read in a casual way, without discovering that it was written to exact rules, deserves more use. The disposition of the subject is excellently laid out; a "text," four "divisions," and "in conclusion," with the text repeated, is a method so familiar to Englishmen on Sundays that the order for variations on the initial theme is peculiarly easy: nor need the result be the least like a sermon, although this description of its shape is suggestive of one.

Another form, the Glose, resembles the Rondeau Redoublé in many ways; indeed, it may be almost looked upon as a freer form of that poem. It appears, however, to be of distinct origin, and very rare in French poetry, although much used in Spanish and Portuguese verse. It begins, like the Rondeau Redoublé, with a quatrain, here called the texte;—this is usually a quotation from a former poet. This text the Glose proceeds to comment on, or amplify, in four stanzas of ten lines, closing each as in the rondeau redoublé, with one of the lines of the text in the original order; but the necessity for restricting the rhymes to two is not observed here. Each stanza has the sixth, ninth, and tenth (the refrain) line, rhyming on the same sound, but the others appear to be chosen at the fancy of the writer, while the final refrain of the rondeau redoublé is also wanting in the glose. First employed solely for serious themes of religion or philosophy, it is now in France, like the once sacred triolet, devoted to parody and the lightest forms of humour. Owing to the impossibility of collating the mass of periodical literature of the last ten or fifteen years, it would be rash to say that the glose has never appeared in English, but not one has been discovered to include in this book. Yet, as De Gramont places the shape among those he includes as frequently used in France, it seemed best to give here a brief outline of its form. De Banville quotes one by Jean François Sarazin formed on the sonnet "de IOB" by Benserade, where fourteen quatrains are ended by the lines of the sonnet, employed in their original order. This form offers a field for serious comment or sarcastic parody that deserves working.

The Sestina, invented by the famous troubadour, Arnaut Daniel, at the end of the thirteenth century, has not been used in French poetry so often as the ballade and rondeau. There are specimens in the poetry of Pontus de Thyard, and one in the Pleiade of the sixteenth century, besides many others, but it has been comparatively an exotic in French poetry, as in English, until recent years. That it was used and admired by Dante and Petrarch, alone gives the sestina a royal precedence over all of the other forms. Many judges consider it to be the supreme work of poetic art in fixed forms, while others claim similar distinction for the chant royal, and not a few for the sonnet. To distinguish between the charms of these three royal forms would need a Paris, nor is it necessary to do so, since each will to his own taste, no matter who claims authority on the ever-disputed question of supreme beauty. Mr. Hueffer in his "Troubadours" has a chapter so full of interest and teeming with information of the growth of the stanza, that in despair of condensing its knowledge within the space possible here, the mere notice of it must suffice. De Gramont give the rules of the poem as written by the originator and followers in Italy, Spain, and Portugal:—

1st.—The Sestina has six stanzas, each of six lines, these being of the same length.

2nd.—The lines of the six verses end with the six same words, not rhyming with each other; these end words are chosen exclusively from two syllabled nouns.