French Lyrics | Page 8

suppression of the caesura and the overflow of one line into the next; the displacement of the caesura sometimes goes so far as to put in the sixth place in the line a syllable quite incapable of receiving a stress.
In the following stanza of Lamartine (see p. 60), which consists of Alexandrine lines of the classical type, the stressed syllables are indicated by italics and the caesura by a dash:
Salu_t, bois couronnés--d'un r_e_ste de verd_ure!?Feuilla_ges jauniss_a_nts--sur les gaz_ons ép_a_is!?Salu_t, derniers beaux j_ou_rs!--Le d_eu_il de la nat_ure Convient à la douleu_r--et pla?_t à mes reg_a_rds.
Cf. for examples of displaced caesura, Hugo's lines--
Je marcherai_--les yeux fixés sur mes pensé_es (p. 121,l. 25.) Seul, inconnu_,--le dos courbé_,--les mains crois_é_es (p. 121, l. 27.)
For examples of enjambement, cf. Leconte de Lisle's Lines--
L'ecclésia_ste a d_i_t:--Un chien viv_a_nt vaut mi_eux Qu'un lion m_o_rt (p. 201, l. 21).?O boucher_i_e!--? soif du meu_rtre!--acharnem_ent?Horr_i_ble! (p. 210, l. 21).
Unrhymed lines (blank verse) and lines of which only the alternate ones rhyme have been tried but discarded.
Rhyme is therefore an indispensable element of French verse, and is vastly more important as a poetic ornament than it is in English; so important that Sainte-Beuve calls it the sole harmony (_l'unique harmonie_) of verse. Rhyme may be either masculine, when it involves but one syllable (_divinité: majesté_, toi: roi), or feminine, when it involves two syllables the second of which contains mute _e_ (repose: rose_, changées: ravagées_); and lines are called masculine or feminine according to their rhymes. Masculine rhymes must constantly alternate with feminine rhymes; that is, two masculine or feminine lines of different rhymes may never come together; but the younger poets have sought a greater liberty here as elsewhere, and poems with but one kind of rhyme occur (see p. 208). Rhyme to be perfect must satisfy the eye as well as the ear; masculine rhymes must have identity of vowel sound and the final consonants must be the same or such as would have the same sound if pronounced (granit: nid, _héros: bourreaux_; not _différent: tyran_); but silent consonants between the vowel and the final consonant do not count (_essaims: saints_, corps: morts). Feminine rhymes must have identity of rhyming vowels and of following consonant sounds if there be any; and the final consonants must be the same (_fidèles: citadelles_, _jolie: crie_; not nuages: louage). Variations from ordinary spelling are sometimes used to make words satisfy this rule of rhyming for the eye (je vien_, _je voi), but they are hardly approved. The ear seems even sometimes to play the subordinate r?le in the rhyme, for words are found in rhyme which satisfy the eye but not the ear (_Vénus: nus_). Rhyme as above described is called sufficient (suffisante); if it also involve identity of the consonant preceding the rhyming vowel (consonne d'appui) it is called rich (riche); (examples: _étoiles: toiles_, bandit;
The French ear is unlike the English in considering rime riche an additional beauty; the Romanticists especially have cultivated it, and there are whole poems where simply sufficient rhyme is the exception. A word may not rhyme with itself, but words identical in form but different in meaning may rhyme with each other (cf. first, fifth, and eleventh stanzas of les Djinns, p. 95.
By the use of lines of different length and especially by the arrangement of the rhymes a great variety of stanza forms has been created, as well as certain definite forms for complete short compositions, known as fixed forms. The most common are the ballade, rondel_, _rondeau_, and _triolet, developed especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and revived in our own, and the sonnet, introduced from Italy during the Renaissance.
The ballade consists of three stanzas, of eight or ten lines each, that repeat exactly the same rhyme arrangement, and of a shorter stanza of four or five lines, called the envoy, which repeats the rhyme arrangement of the second part of the other stanzas. The line of the ballade has generally eight syllables, but may have ten or twelve (see pp. 1, 4, 5, 235).
The rondel, as usually printed, consists of three parts, the first of four lines, the second of four, the last two of which are the first two of the first part, and the third of five, the last one of which is the first one of the first part; there are but two rhymes throughout. The lines of the rondel have usually eight syllables. This form was practically superseded by the rondeau (see pp. 2 and 3).
The rondeau also consists of three parts; the first has five lines, the second three, and the third five, and the first word or words of the first line, usually the first half of the line, are repeated at the end of the second and third parts; there are but two rhymes. The lines