A Short History of French Literature
on the enquiry whether physical or metaphysical love is the sincerest,
and on the quarrel which a difference on this point brings on between
the hero and Gorvein Cadrus his friend and his rival in the love of the
fair Lidoine.
[Sidenote: Chief Romans d'Aventures.]
Many other Romans d'Aventures deserve mention, both for their intrinsic
merits and for the immense popularity they once enjoyed. Foremost among
these must be mentioned _Partenopex de Blois_[95] and _Flore et
Blanchefleur_[96]. The former (formerly ascribed to Denis Pyramus and
now denied to him, but said to date from the twelfth century) is a kind
of modernised _Cupid and Psyche_, except that Cupid's place is taken by
the fairy Melior, and Psyche's by the knight Parthenopeus or
Parthenopex. This poem has great elegance and freshness of style, and
though the author is inclined to moralise (as a near forerunner of the
_Roman de la Rose_ was bound to do), his moralisings are gracefully and
naively put. _Flore et Blanchefleur_ is perhaps even superior. Its theme
is the love of a young Christian prince for a Saracen girl-slave, who
has been brought up with him. She is sold into a fresh captivity to
remove her from him, but he follows her and rescues her unharmed from
the harem of the Emir of Babylon. The delicacy of the handling is very
remarkable in this poem, and it has some links of connection with
_Aucassin et Nicolette_. _Le Roman de Dolopathos_[97] has a literary
history of great interest which we need not touch upon here. Its
versification has more vigour than that of almost any other Roman
d'Aventures. _Blancandin et l'Orguilleuse d'Amour_[98] is more promising
at the beginning than in the sequel. A young knight, hearing of the
pride and coyness of a lady, accosts and kisses her as she rides past
with a great following of knights. Her coldness is of course changed to
love at first sight, and the audacious suitor afterwards delivers her
from her enemies; but the working out of the story is rather dully
managed. _Brun de la Montaigne_[99], as has been already mentioned, is
written in Chanson form, and deals with the famous Forest of Broceliande
in Britanny. _Guillaume de Palerne_[100] is a still more interesting
work. It introduces the favourite mediaeval idea of lycanthropy, the
hero being throughout helped and protected by a friendly were-wolf, who
is before the end of the poem freed from the enchantment to which he is
subjected. This Romance was early translated into English. Of the same
class is the _Roman de l'Escouffle_, where a hawk carries away the
heroine's ring, as in a well-known story of the Arabian Nights. _Amadas
et Idoine_[101] is one of the numerous histories of the success of a
squire of low degree, but is distinguished from most of them by the
originality of its conception and the vigour of its style. The scenes
where the hero is recovered of his madness by his beloved, and where,
keeping guard over her tomb, he fights with ghostly enemies, after a
time of trial of his fidelity, and rescues her from death, are unusually
brilliant. _Le Bel Inconnu_[102], which (from a curious misunderstanding
of its older form _Li Biaus Desconnus_) occurs in English form as
_Lybius Diasconus_, tells the story of a son of Gawain and the fairy
with the white hands, and thus is one of the numerous secondary Romances
of the Round Table. So also is the long and interesting _Roman du
Chevalier as Deux Espees_[103]; this extends to more than 12,000 lines,
and, though the adventures recorded are of the ordinary Round Table
pattern, there is noticeable in it a better faculty of maintaining the
interest and a completer mastery over episodes than usual. A still
longer poem (also belonging to what may be called the outer Arthurian
cycle) is _Durmart le Gallois_[104], which contains almost 16,000
verses. The loves of the hero and Fenise, the Queen of Ireland, are
somewhat lengthily handled; but there are passages of merit, especially
one most striking episode in which the hero, riding through a forest by
night, comes to a tree covered from top to bottom with burning torches,
while a shining naked child is enthroned on the summit. These touches of
mystical religion are rarer in the later Romans d'Aventures than in the
Arthurian Romances proper, but with them one of the most remarkable
elements of romance disappears. Philippe de Remy, Seigneur de Beaumanoir
(who has other claims to literary distinction) is held to be author of
two Romans d'Aventures[105], _La Manekine_ (the story of the King of
Hungary's daughter, who cut off her hand to save herself from her
father's incestuous passion) and _Blonde d'Oxford_, where a young French
squire carries off an English heiress. _Joufrois de Poitiers_[106],
which has not come down to us complete, is chiefly remarkable for the
liveliness of style with which adventures, in themselves tolerably
hackneyed, are handled. Other Romans d'Aventures, which are either as
yet in manuscript or of less importance, are _Ille et Galeron_ and
_Eracle_, both by Gautier d'Arras, _Cristal et Larie_, _La Dame a la
Licorne_, _Guy de Warwike_, _Gerard de Nevers_ or _La Violette_[107],
_Guillaume de Dole_, _Eledus et Serena_, _Florimont_.
[Sidenote: General Character.]
Like most kinds of mediaeval poetry, these Romans d'Aventures have a
very considerable likeness the one to the other. It may indeed be said
that they possess a 'common form' of certain incidents and situations,
which reappear with slight changes and omissions in all or most of them.
Their besetting sins are diffuseness and the recurrence of stock
descriptions and images. On the other hand, they have their peculiar
merits. The harmony of their versification is often very considerable;
their language is supple, picturesque, and varied, and the moral
atmosphere which they breathe is one of agreeable refinement and
civilisation. In them perhaps is seen most clearly the fanciful and
graceful side of the state of things which we call chivalry. Its
mystical and transcendental sides are less vividly and touchingly
exhibited than in the older Arthurian Romances; and its higher passions
are also less dealt with. The Romans d'Aventures supply once more,
according to the Aristotelian definition, an Odyssey to the Arthurian
Iliad; they are complex and deal with manners. Nor ought it to be
omitted that, though they constantly handle questions of gallantry, and
though their uniform theme is love, the language employed on these
subjects is almost invariably delicate, and such as would not fail to
satisfy even modern standards of propriety. The courtesy which was held
to be so great a knightly virtue, if it was not sufficient to ensure a
high standard of morality in conduct, at any rate secured such a
standard in matter of expression. In this respect the Court literature
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries stands in very remarkable
contrast to that which was tolerated, if not preferred, from the time of
Louis the Eleventh until the reign of his successor fourteenth of the
name.
[Sidenote: Last Chansons. Baudouin de Sebourc.]
Reference has already been made to the influence which these poems had
on the Chansons de Gestes. Few of the later developments of these are
worth much attention, but what may be called the last original Chanson
deserves some notice. _Baudouin de Sebourc_[108] and its sequel the
_Bastard of Bouillon_[109] worthily close this great division of
literature, and, setting as they do a finish to the sub-cycle of the
_Chevalier au Cygne_, hardly lose except in simplicity by comparison
with its magnificent opening in the _Chanson d'Antioche_. They contain
together some 33,000 verses, and the scene changes freely. It is
sometimes in Syria, where the Crusaders fight against the infidel,
sometimes in France and Flanders, where Baudouin has adventures of all
kinds, comic and chivalrous, sometimes on the sea, where among other
things the favourite mediaeval legend of St. Brandan's Isle is brought
in. Not a little of its earlier part shows the sarcastic spirit common
at the date of its composition, the beginning of the fourteenth century.
The length of the two poems is enormous, as has been said; but, putting
two or three masterpieces aside, no poem of mediaeval times has a more
varied and livelier interest than _Baudouin de Sebourc_, and few breathe
the genuine Chanson spirit of pugnacious piety better than _Le Bastart
de Bouillon_.
FOOTNOTES:
[91] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, v. d.
[92] Ed. van Hasselt. Brussels, 1866.
[93] _The wooden horse._
[94] The _Songe d'Enfer_ and the _Voie de Paradis_, published by
Jubinal, as the _Roman des Eles_ has been by Scheler, _Meraugis_ by
Michelant, and the _Vengeance de Raguidel_ by Hippeau.
[95] Ed. Crapelet. Paris, 1834.
[96] Ed. Du Meril. Paris, 1856.
[97] Ed. Brunet et Montaiglon. Paris, 1856.
[98] Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1867.
[99] Ed. Meyer. Paris, 1875.
[100] Ed. Michelant. Paris, 1876.
[101] Ed. Hippeau. Paris, 1863.
[102] Ed. Hippeau. Paris, 1860.
[103] Ed. Foerster. Halle, 1877.
[104] Ed. Stengel. Tuebingen, 1873.
[105] Both edited in extract by Bordier. Paris, 1869. Complete edition
begun by Suchier. Paris, 1884.
[106] Ed. Hofmann and Muncker. Halle, 1880.
[107] Ed. Michel.
[108] Ed. Boca. 2 vols. Valenciennes, 1841.
[109] Ed. Scheler. Brussels, 1877.
CHAPTER IX.
LATER SONGS AND POEMS.
[Sidenote: The Artificial Forms of Northern France.]
Not the least important division of early French literature, in point of
bulk and peculiarity, though not always the most important in point of
literary excellence, consists of the later lyrical and miscellaneous
poems of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. By the end of the
thirteenth century the chief original developments had lost their first
vigour, while, on the other hand, the influence of the regular forms of
Provencal poetry had had time to make itself fully felt. There arose in
consequence, in northern France, a number of artificial forms, the
origin and date of which is somewhat obscure, but which rapidly attained
great popularity, and which continued for fully two centuries almost to
monopolise the attention of poets who did not devote themselves to
narrative. These forms, the Ballade, the Rondeau, the Virelai, etc.,
have already been alluded to as making their appearance among the later
growths of early lyrical poetry. They must now be treated in the
abundant development which they received at the hands of a series of
poets from Lescurel to Charles d'Orleans.
[Sidenote: General Character. Varieties.]
The principle underlying all these forms is the same, that is to say,
the substitution for the half-articulate refrain of the early Romances,
of a refrain forming part of the sense, and repeated with strict
regularity at the end or in the middle of stanzas rigidly corresponding
in length and constitution. In at least two cases, the _lai_ and the
_pastourelle_, the names of earlier and less rigidly exact forms were
borrowed for the newer schemes; but the more famous and prevailing
models[110], the Ballade, with its modification the Chant Royal, and
the Rondel, with its modifications the Rondeau and the Triolet, are new.
It has been customary to see in the adoption of these forms a sign of
decadence; but this can hardly be sustained in face of the fact that, in
Charles d'Orleans and Villon respectively, the Rondel and the Ballade
were the occasion of poetry far surpassing in vigour and in grace all
preceding work of the kind, and also in presence of the service which
the sonnet--a form almost if not quite as artificial--has notoriously
done to poetry. It may be admitted, however, that the practitioners of
the Ballade and the Rondeau soon fell into puerile and inartistic