A Short History of French Literature
Mais pour cellui qui a deux mains
Dont il sont en ce siecle mains,
Qui ont sous la chappe Faulx Semblant.
Wolf, _Op. cit._ p. 5.
The final allusion is to a personage of the _Roman de la Rose_.
[65] Ed. Roquefort, vol. ii. See next chapter.
[66] By Dr. W. Foerster. Heilbronn, 1882.
CHAPTER VI.
EARLY LYRICS.
[Sidenote: Early and Later Lyrics.]
The lyric poetry of the middle ages in France divides itself naturally
into two periods, distinguished by very strongly marked characteristics.
The end of the thirteenth century is the dividing point in this as in
many other branches of literature. After that we get the extremely
interesting, if artificial, forms of the Rondeau and Ballade, with their
many varieties and congeners. With these we shall not busy ourselves in
the present chapter. But the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are
provided with a lyric growth, less perfect indeed in form than that
which occupied French singers from Machault to Marot, but more
spontaneous, fuller of individuality, variety, and vigour, and scarcely
less abundant in amount.
[Sidenote: Origins of Lyric.]
[Sidenote: Romances and Pastourelles.]
Before the twelfth century we find no traces of genuine lyrical work in
France. The ubiquitous _Cantilenae_ indeed again make their appearance
in the speculations of literary historians, but here as elsewhere they
have no demonstrable historical existence. Except a few sacred songs,
sometimes, as in the case of Saint Eulalie, in early Romance language,
sometimes in what the French call _langue farcie_, that is to say, a
mixture of French and Latin, nothing regularly lyrical is found up to
the end of the eleventh century. But soon afterwards lyric work becomes
exceedingly abundant. This is what forms the contents of Herr Karl
Bartsch's delightful volume of _Romanzen und Pastourellen_[67]. These
are the two earliest forms of French lyric poetry. They are recognised
by the Troubadour Raimon Vidal as the special property of the Northern
tongue, and no reasonable pretence has been put forward to show that
they are other than indigenous. The tendency of both is towards iambic
rhythm, but it is not exclusively manifested as in later verse. It is
one of the most interesting things in French literary history to see how
early the estrangement of the language from the anapaestic and dactylic
measures natural to Teutonic speech began to declare itself[68]. These
early poems bubble over with natural gaiety, their refrains, musical
though semi-articulate as they are, are sweet and manifold in cadence,
but the main body of the versification is either iambic or trochaic (it
was long before the latter measure became infrequent), and the freedom
of the ballad-metres of England and Germany is seldom present. The
Romance differs in form and still more in subject from the Pastourelle,
and both differ very remarkably from the form and manner of Provencal
poetry. It has been observed by nearly all students, that the love-poems
of the latter language are almost always at once personal and abstract
in subject. The Romance and the Pastourelle, on the contrary, are almost
always dramatic. They tell a story, and often (though not always in the
case of the Pastourelle) they tell it of some one other than the singer.
The most common form of the Romance is that of a poem varying from
twenty lines long to ten times that length and divided into stanzas.
These stanzas consist of a certain number (not usually less than three
or more than eight) of lines of equal length capped with a refrain in a
different metre. By far the best, though by no means the earliest, of
them are those of Audefroy le Bastard, who, according to the late M.
Paulin Paris, may be fixed at the beginning of the thirteenth century.
Audefroy's poems are very much alike in plan, telling for the most part
how the course of some impeded true love at last ran smooth. They rank
with the very best mediaeval poetry in colour, in lively painting of
manners and feelings, and in grace of versification. Unfortunately they
are one and all rather too long for quotation here. The anonymous
Romance of 'Bele Erembors' will represent the class well enough. The
rhyme still bears traces of assonance, which is thought to have
prevailed till Audefroy's time:--
Quant vient en mai, que l'on dit as lons jors,
Que Frans en France repairent de roi cort,
Reynauz repaire devant el premier front
Si s'en passa lez lo mes Arembor,
Ainz n'en designa le chief drecier a mont.
E Raynaut amis!
Bele Erembors a la fenestre au jor
Sor ses genolz tient paile de color;
Voit Frans de France qui repairent de cort,
E voit Raynaut devant el premier front:
En haut parole, si a dit sa raison.
E Raynaut amis!
'Amis Raynaut, j'ai ja veu cel jor
Se passisoiz selon mon pere tor,
Dolanz fussiez se ne parlasse a vos.'
'Ja mesfaistes, fille d'Empereor,
Autrui amastes, si obliastes nos.'
E Raynaut amis!
'Sire Raynaut, je m'en escondirai:
A cent puceles sor sainz vos jurerai,
A trente dames que avuec moi menrai,
C'onques nul hom fors vostre cors n'amai.
Prennez l'emmende et je vos baiserai.'
E Raynaut amis!
Li cuens Raynauz en monta lo degre,
Gros par espaules, greles par lo baudre;
Blonde ot lo poil, menu, recercele:
En nule terre n'ot so biau bacheler.
Voit l'Erembors, so comence a plorer.
E Raynaut amis!
Li cuens Raynauz est montez en la tor,
Si s'est assis en un lit point a flors,
Dejoste lui se siet bele Erembors.
* * * * * *
Lors recomencent lor premieres amors.
E Raynaut amis!
The Pastourelle is still more uniform in subject. It invariably
represents the knight or the poet riding past and seeing a fair
shepherdess by his road-side. He alights and woos her with or without
success. In this class of poem the stanzas are usually longer, and
consist of shorter lines than is the case with the Romances, while the
refrains are more usually meaningless though generally very musical. It
is, however, well to add that the very great diversity of metrical
arrangement in this class makes it impossible to give a general
description of it. There are Pastourelles consisting merely of
four-lined stanzas with no refrain at all. The following is a good
specimen of the class:--
De Saint Quentin a Cambrai
Chevalchoie l'autre jour;
Les un boisson esgardai,
Touse i vi de bel atour.
La colour
Ot freche com rose en mai.
De cuer gai
Chantant la trovai
Ceste chansonnete
'En non deu, j'ai bel ami,
Cointe et joli,
Tant soie je brunete.'
Vers la pastoure tornai
Quant la vi en son destour;
Hautement la saluai
Et di 'deus vos doinst bon jour
Et honour.
Celle ke ci trove ai,
Sens delai
Ses amis serai.'
Dont dist la doucete
'En non deu, j'ai bel ami,
Cointe et joli,
Tant soie je brunete.'
Deles li seoir alai
Et li priai de s'amour,
Celle dist 'Je n'amerai
Vos ne autrui par nul tour,
Sens pastour,
Robin, ke fiencie l'ai.
Joie en ai,
Si en chanterai
Ceste chansonnete:
En non deu, j'ai bel ami,
Cointe et joli,
Tant soie je brunete.'
So various, notwithstanding the simplicity and apparent monotony of
their subjects, are these charming poems, that it is difficult to give,
by mere citation of any one or even of several, an idea of their beauty.
In no part of the literature of the middle ages are its lighter
characteristics more pleasantly shown. The childish freedom from care
and afterthought, the half unconscious delight in the beauty of flowers
and the song of birds, the innocent animal enjoyment of fine weather and
the open country, are nowhere so well represented. Chaucer may give
English readers some idea of all this, but even Chaucer is sophisticated
in comparison with the numerous, and for the most part nameless, singers
who preceded him by almost two centuries in France. As a purely formal
and literary characteristic, the use of the burden or refrain is perhaps
their most noteworthy peculiarity. Herr Bartsch has collected five
hundred of these refrains, all different. There is nothing like this to
be found in any other literature; and, as readers of Beranger know, the
fashion was preserved in France long after it had been given up
elsewhere.
[Sidenote: Thirteenth Century.]
[Sidenote: Changes in Lyric.]
After the twelfth century the early lyrical literature of France
undergoes some changes. In the first place it ceases to be anonymous,
and individual singers--some of them, like Thibaut of Champagne, of very
great merit and individuality--make their appearance. In the second
place it becomes more varied but at the same time more artificial in
form, and exhibits evident marks of the communication between troubadour
and trouvere, and of the imitation by the latter of the stricter forms
of Provencal poetry. The Romance and the Pastourelle are still
cultivated, but by their side grow up French versions, often adapted
with considerable independence, of the forms of the South[69]. Such, for
instance, is the _chanson d'amour_, a form less artfully regulated
indeed than the corresponding canzon or sestine of the troubadours, but
still of some intricacy. It consists of five or six stanzas, each of
which has two interlaced rhymes, and concludes with an _Envoi_, which,
however, is often omitted. _Chansonnettes_ on a reduced scale are also
found. In these pieces the alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes,
which was ultimately to become the chief distinguishing feature of
French prosody, is observable, though it is by no means universal. To
the Provencal _tenson_ corresponds the _jeu parti_ or verse dialogue,
which is sometimes arranged in the form of a Chanson. The _salut
d'amour_ is a kind of epistle, sometimes of very great length and
usually in octosyllabic verse, the decasyllable being more commonly used
in the Chanson. Of this the _complainte_ is only a variety. Again, the
Provencal _sirvente_ is represented by the northern _serventois_, a poem
in Chanson form, but occupied instead of love with war, satire,
religion, and miscellaneous matters. It has even been doubted whether
the _serventois_ is not the forerunner of the _sirvente_ instead of the
reverse being the case. Other forms are _motets_, _rotruenges_,
_aubades_. Poems called _rondeaux_ and _ballades_ also make their
appearance, but they are loose in construction and undecided in form.
The thirteenth century is, moreover, the palmy time of the Pastourelle.
Most of those which we possess belong to this period, and exhibit to the
full the already indicated characteristics of that graceful form. But
the lyric forms of the thirteenth century are to some extent rather
imitated than indigenous, and it is no doubt to the fact of this
imitation that the common ascription of general poetical priority to the
Langue d'Oc, unfounded as it has been sufficiently shown to be, is due
in the main. The most courageous defenders of the North have wished to
maintain its claims wholly intact even in this instance, but
probability, if not evidence, is against them.
[Sidenote: Traces of Lyric in the Thirteenth Century.]
[Sidenote: Quesnes de Bethune.]
[Sidenote: Thibaut de Champagne.]
It has been said that the number of song writers from the end of the
twelfth century to the end of the thirteenth is extremely large. M.
Paulin Paris, whose elaborate chapter in the _Histoire Litteraire_ is
still the great authority on the subject, has enumerated nearly two