French Lyrics | Page 8

in each half-line; it might be any one of the
first five syllables, but is most frequently the third, second, or fourth,
rarely the first or fifth; but the secondary stress might be wanting
altogether; a third stressed syllable in the half-line sometimes occurs.
The Romanticists introduced a somewhat greater flexibility into the
Alexandrine line by permitting the displacement or 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 plaî_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!--ô 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 rôle 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