French Lyrics | Page 7

as yet found no general acceptance.
The unit of French versification is not a fixed number of long and short,
or accented and unaccented, syllables in a certain definite arrangement,
that is, a foot, but a line. A line is a certain number of syllables ending
in a rhyme which binds it to one or more other lines. The lines found in
lyric verse vary in length from one to thirteen syllables; but lines with
an even number of syllables are much more used than those with an
odd number.
In determining the number of syllables the general rules of syllabic

division are followed, and each vowel or diphthong involves a syllable.
But the following points are to be noted:
0. Mute e_ final or followed by _s_ or _nt is not counted at the end of
the line.
0. Final mute _e_ in the body of the line is not counted as a syllable
before a word beginning with a vowel or mute _h_ (elision).
0. Mute _e_ in the termination of the third person plural, imperfect and
conditional, of verbs is not counted; nor is it counted in the future
and conditional of verbs of the first conjugation whose stem ends
in a vowel (oublieront_, also written in verse oublîront_; see
0. 130, l. 14).
0. When two or more vowel sounds other than mute _e_ come together
within a word they are sometimes treated as a diphthong and
make but one syllable, sometimes separated and counted as two.
Usage is not altogether consistent in this particular; the same
combination is in some words pronounced as two syllables
(_ni-ais, li-en, pri-ère, pri-ons, jou-et_), in others as one (_biais,
rien, bar-rière, ai-mions, fou-et_); and even the same word is
sometimes variable (ancien, hier, duel). In general such
combinations are monosyllabic if they have developed from a
single vowel in the Latin parent word.
0. Certain words allow a different spelling according to the demands of
the verse (encore_ or _encor_, _Charles_ or _Charle).
Since the sixteenth century, hiatus has been forbidden by the rules of
French versification. But, as we have just seen (under 4 above), two
vowels are allowed to come together in the interior of a word. What the
rule against hiatus does proscribe then is the use of a word ending in a
vowel (except mute _e_, which is elided; cf. 2 above) before a word
beginning with a vowel or mute _h_, and the use of words in which
mute _e_ not final follows a vowel in the interior of the word; e.g. _tu
as, et ont, livrée jolie; louent, allées_. But hiatus is not regarded as
existing when two vowels are brought together by the elision of a mute
e_; e.g. in Hugo's lines, the _vie a in
L'ouragan de leur vie a pris toutes les pages (p. 108, l. 20), and the joie
et in
Sois ma force et ma joie et mon pilier d'airain (p. 130, l. 8).

Cf. also 1 and 3 above.
The rhythm of the line comes from the relation of its stressed to its
unstressed syllables. All lines have a stress (_lève_) on the rhyme
syllable, and if they have more than four syllables they have one or
more other stresses. Lines that consist of more than eight syllables are
usually broken by a caesural pause, which must follow a stressed
syllable. In lines of ten syllables the pause comes generally after the
fourth syllable, sometimes after the fifth; in lines of twelve syllables,
after the sixth.
The line of twelve syllables is the most important and widely used of
all and is known as the Alexandrine, from a poem of the twelfth
century celebrating the exploits of Alexander the Great, which is one of
the earliest examples of its use. It is almost without exception the
measure of serious and dignified dramatic and narrative poetry, and
even in lyric verse it is used more frequently than any other. From
MALHERBE to VICTOR HUGO the accepted rule demanded a
caesura after the sixth syllable and a pause at the end of the line; this
divided the line into two equal portions and separated each line from its
neighbors, preventing the overflow (enjambement) of one line into the
next. The line thus constructed had two fixed stresses, one on the sixth
syllable, before the caesura, which therefore had to be the final syllable
of a word and could not have mute _e_ for its vowel, and another on
the final (twelfth) syllable. There are indeed in the poets of that period
examples of lines in which, when naturally read, the most considerable
pause falls in some other position; but the line always offers in the sixth
place a syllable capable of a principal stress. There was also regularly
one other stressed syllable