INTRODUCTION.—THE TRIOLET.
lsewhere in the pages of The Girl’s Own Paper a writer has explained the laws of form governing and underlying what we call “classical” music. To those who love art, in whatever guise it comes to us—as symphony, picture, or poem—a very slight amount of careful study of its accepted laws will repay a thousandfold the trouble taken. Having grasped even the faintest idea of the reason for the special shape of a sonata or a sonnet, the interest in the work itself becomes more keen. Then, too, it will be seen why literary men and artists choose the higher forms of their art to clothe their ideas. There is too often a feeling that the chief difference between popular and classical art is that the one is “dry,” while the other is pleasing. This is in part true, but only when scholastic rules are obtruded too prominently. For while it may be at once conceded that too great an attention to form produces dry bones, yet genius can make these live, for subject as they are to laws, and having clear sequence of form, they have inherent vitality and strength, relying on more than mere fashion to keep their hold on the people, in spite of the varying taste of each passing year.
Nature, to whom we all come alike for our simplest as our highest thoughts, works in many ways, but all subject to inviolable laws. These may often be not evident at a cursory glance, and still more often beyond our keenest search; we can only infer the law from the result. In mere human work, what one man produces is more or less easily understood by his fellow-man, and a knowledge of the rules to which he conformed, adds interest to our pleasure in his work, and makes us able to be real critics, to some extent, while mere taste or feeling can lay claim to no more than a personal and often valueless opinion.
The laws which govern music are probably better known than those which rule verse, as our English poets choose generally a freer and more flexible mode of expression than the old writers allowed. Again, in music the form is more easily seen, for two reasons: one, that constant habit of hearing pieces in strict form has given us knowledge, without our being able to formulate it; the other, that the subjects of music, being at most vague and abstract, are left out of the title of works by the great masters, save in a very few instances. Even the “Eroica Symphony” or the “Wedding March” merely suggests abstract feelings. To describe a rose or an umbrella, for example, is impossible in music. We can only suggest praise, or grief, and similar emotional feelings. Therefore the shape only is usually given in the title, such as a march, minuet, or sonata. But in poetry the shape is rarely described. Even in the most widely used of these fixed forms, the sonnet, the shape is not by any means invariably expressed in the title. In the verses written in imitation of the Old French Troubadours it is more often used. In the rondeau, the most widely chosen, it is not always given, but the triolet, villanelle, or ballade is almost always so described in the title, the shape, as in music, ranking worthy of interest in itself. These old shapes are more akin to the fugue and canon in music, as the whole work has inner laws governing each detail, and making the choice of words or notes decided beforehand to a great extent by the form.
It is intended in this paper to describe a few of the forms which have of late found favour with the younger school of living poets, for a twofold reason: first, that their readers may better appreciate their works; secondly, that the amateur verse-writer may gain a knowledge of these verse shapes, and thereby be able to produce trifles which are worthy of attention. Although it is not given to many to produce great thoughts, yet to acquire a polished mode of displaying lesser ones to advantage, is in itself worth the trying. The tendency to diffusiveness which weakens so much verse, until the pretty trifling becomes wearisome, would be lessened if a strict form were first chosen, and the subject necessarily compressed within its limits.
The greater number of these forms originated with the Troubadours, and here, for mere brevity’s sake, only a very few words must be said. The subject of their loves and their lives has been so fully discussed that a mere résumé of all that is known would fill many parts of this magazine. Hallam says “the earliest records cannot trace them beyond A.D. 1100, and they became extinct at the end of the next century. While they flourished they numbered many hundreds of versifiers in the language of Provence, though not always natives of France.” It would be interesting, if space allowed, to quote from some of the many histories. I had intended to do so, but the growing material forbade the idea of using it here, and so I must refer would-be inquirers to some of the more easily accessible works. Foremost is Dr. Francis Hueffer’s “The Troubadours,” published in 1878; it gives a scholarly and full account of the most salient members of the school and their works. “The Troubadours: their Loves and Lives,” by Mr. John Rutherford, is also interesting; while a work by M. Theodore de Banville, the “Petit Traité de Poésie Française,” affords an exhaustive analysis of the rules of their verse and its modern imitations.
Their verse was distinguished by its being subject to very strict and subtle laws, often involved and carried to an artificial complexity, perilously near the triumph of sound over sense; yet it has a charm peculiarly its own. The forms of this school being still exotic, and not (except the sonnet) incorporated into English literature, gives them a special fitness when employed for fanciful trifles on subjects of an older time.
The qualities termed “conceits” by the old English writers, are admirably expressed through the medium of these old shapes; a certain amount of extravagance of compliment and affectation is not out of place here. The flavour of the verse smacks of the “Moyen Age,” or “Powder and Fan” period beloved by artists. In these forms the shape of the verse itself takes the place somewhat of the costume and accessories of a painting, and gives local colour to the subject. When used in this way, as Mr. Austin Dobson has so often shown, they can be made (like a picture by Abbey) to reproduce the past in a living way, with its own domestic sentiment, far removed from a mere archæological or academic study of olden days, which often appeals to the intellect rather than the feeling, and moves us to criticise the method employed, instead of falling under the charm of the subject described.
But they are by no means limited to this class of subject, as Mr. Swinburne’s Roundels show. Nature and her moods may be sung as fitly in these, as in the most free forms of poetry.