A Short History of French Literature
The chief forms in which these poets exercised their ingenuity were as
follows. The simplest and oldest was called simply _vers_; it had few
artificial rules, was written in octosyllabic lines, and arranged in
stanzas. From this was developed the _canso_, the most usual of
Provencal forms. Here the rhymes were interlaced, and the alternation of
masculine and feminine by degrees observed. The length of the lines
varied. Both these forms were consecrated to love verse; the Sirvente,
on the other hand, is panegyrical or satirical, its meaning being
literally 'Song of Service.' It consisted for the most part of short
stanzas, simply rhyme, and corresponding exactly to one another. The
_planh_ or Complaint was a dirge or funeral song written generally in
decasyllabics. The _tenson_ or debate is in dialogue form, and when
there are more than two disputants is called _torneijamens_. The
narrative Romance existed in Provencal as well as the _balada_ or
three-stanza poem, usually with refrain. The _retroensa_ is a longer
refrain poem of later date, but in neither is the return of the same
rhyme in each stanza necessarily observed, as in the French _ballade_.
The _alba_ is a leave-taking poem at morning, and the _serena_ (if it
can be called a form, for scarcely more than a single example exists) a
poem of remembrance and longing at eventide. The _pastorela_, which had
numerous sub-divisions, explains itself. The _descort_ is a poem
something like the irregular ode, which varies the structure of its
stanzas. The _sextine_, in six stanzas of identical and complicated
versification, is the stateliest of all Provencal forms. Not merely the
rhymes but the words which rhyme are repeated on a regular scheme. The
_breu-doble_ (double-short) is a curious little form on three rhymes,
two of which are repeated twice in three four-lined stanzas, and given
once in a concluding couplet, while the third finishes each quatrain.
Other forms are often mentioned and given, but they are not of much
consequence.
The prose of the best period of Provencal literature is of little
importance. Its most considerable remains, besides religious works and a
few scientific and grammatical treatises, are a prose version of the
_Chanson des Albigeois_, and an interesting collection of contemporary
lives of the Troubadours.
[Sidenote: Third Period.]
The productiveness of the last two centuries of Provencal literature
proper has been spoken of by the highest living authority as at most an
aftermath. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Arnaut Vidal
wrote a Roman d'Aventures entitled _Guillem de la Barra_. This poet,
like most of the other literary names of the period, belongs to the
school of Toulouse, a somewhat artificial band of writers who flourished
throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, held poetical
tournaments on the first Sunday in May, invented or adopted the famous
phrase _gai saber_ for their pursuits, and received, if they were
successful, the equally famous Golden Violet and minor trinkets of the
same sort. The brotherhood directed itself by an art of poetry in which
the half-forgotten traditions of more spontaneous times were gathered
up.
To this period, and to its latter part, the Waldensian writings entitled
_La Nobla Leyczon_, to which ignorance and sectarian enthusiasm had
given a much earlier date, are now assigned. There is also a
considerable mass of miscellaneous literature, but nothing of great
value, or having much to do with the only point which is here of
importance, the distinctive character of Provencal literature, and the
influence of that literature upon the development of letters in France
generally. With a few words on these two points this chapter may be
concluded.
[Sidenote: Literary Relation of Provencal and French.]
[Sidenote: Defects of Provencal Literature.]
It may be regarded as not proven that any initial influence was
exercised over northern French literature by the literature of the
South, and more than this, it may be held to be unlikely that any such
influence was exerted. For in the first place all the more important
developments of the latter, the Epic, the Drama, the Fabliau, are
distinctly of northern birth, and either do not exist in Provencal at
all, or exist for the most part as imitations of northern originals.
With regard to lyric poetry the case is rather different. The earliest
existing lyrics of the North are somewhat later than the earliest songs
of the Troubadours, and no great lyrical variety or elegance is reached
until the Troubadours' work had, by means of Thibaut de Champagne and
others, had an opportunity of penetrating into northern France. On the
other hand, the forms which finished lyric adopted in the North are by
no means identical with those of the Troubadours. The scientific and
melodious figures of the Ballade, the Rondeau, the Chant-royal, the
Rondel, and the Villanelle, cannot by any ingenuity be deduced from
Canso or Balada, Retroensa or Breu-Doble. The Alba and the Pastorela
agree in subject with the Aubade and the Pastourelle, but have no
necessary or obvious connection of form. It would, however, be almost as
great a mistake to deny the influence of the spirit of Provencal
literature over French, as to regard the two as standing in the
position of mother and daughter. The Troubadours undoubtedly preceded
their Northern brethren in scrupulous attention to poetical form, and in
elaborate devices for ensuring such attention. They preceded them too in
recognising that quality in poetry for which there is perhaps no other
word than elegance. There can be little doubt that they sacrificed to
these two divinities, elegance and the formal limitation of verse,
matters almost equally if not more important. The motives of their poems
are few, and the treatment of those motives monotonous. Love, war, and
personal enmity, with a certain amount of more or less frigid didactics,
almost complete the list. In dealing with the first and the most
fruitful, they fell into the deadly error of stereotyping their manner
of expression. Objection has sometimes been taken to the 'eternal
hawthorn and nightingale' of Provencal poetry. The objection would
hardly be fatal, if this eternity did not extend to a great many things
besides hawthorn and nightingales. In the later Troubadours especially,
the fault which has been urged against French dramatic literature just
before the Romantic movement was conspicuously anticipated. Every mood,
every situation of passion, was catalogued and analysed, and the proper
method of treatment, with similes and metaphors complete, was assigned.
There was no freshness and no variety, and in the absence of variety and
freshness, that of vigour was necessarily implied. It may even be
doubted whether the influence of this hot-house verse on the more
natural literature of the North was not injurious rather than
beneficial. Certain it is that the artificial poetry of the Trouveres
went (in the persons of the Rondeau and Ballade-writing Rhetoriqueurs of
the fifteenth century) the same way and came to the same end, that its
elder sister had already trodden and reached with the competitors for
the Violet, the Eglantine, and the Marigold of Toulouse.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] _Oc_ and _oil_ (_hoc_ and _hoc illud_), the respective terms
indicating affirmation. In this chapter the information given is based
on a smaller acquaintance at first hand with the subject than is the
case in the chapters on French proper. Herr Karl Bartsch has been the
guide chiefly followed.
[45] Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes.
[46] See chap. i.
[47] See chap. x.
[48] The poem on Boethius. See chap. i.
[49] By the school of the so-called _Felibres_, of whom Mistral and
Aubanel are the chief.
[50] Moland and Hericault's Introduction to _Aucassin et Nicolette_.
Paris, 1856.
CHAPTER IV.
ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY.
[Sidenote: The Tale of Arthur. Its Origins.]
The passion for narrative poetry, which at first contented itself with
stories drawn from the history or tradition of France, took before very
long a wider range. The origin of the Legend of King Arthur, of the
Round Table, of the Holy Graal, and of all the adventures and traditions
connected with these centres, is one of the most intricate questions in
the history of mediaeval literature. It would be beyond the scope of
this book to attempt to deal with it at length. It is sufficient for our
purpose, in the first place, to point out that the question of the
actual existence and acts of Arthur has very little to do with the
question of the origin of the Arthurian cycle. The history of mediaeval
literature, as distinguished from the history of the Middle Ages, need
not concern itself with any conflict between the invaders and the older
inhabitants of England. The question which is of historical literary
interest is, whether the traditions which Geoffrey of Monmouth, Walter
Map, Chrestien de Troyes, and their followers, wrought into a fabric of
such astounding extent and complexity, are due to Breton originals, or
whether their authority is nothing but the ingenuity of Geoffrey working
upon the meagre data of Nennius[51]. As far as this question concerns
French literature, the chief champions of these rival opinions were till
lately M. de la Villemarque and M. Paulin Paris. In no instance was the
former able to produce Breton or Celtic originals of early date. On the
other hand, M. Paris showed that Nennius is sufficient to account for
Geoffrey, and that Geoffrey is sufficient to account for the purely
Arthurian part of subsequent romances and chronicles. The religious
element of the cycle has a different origin, and may possibly not be
Celtic at all. Lastly, we must take into account a large body of Breton
and Welsh poetry from which, especially in the parts of the legend which
deal with Tristram, with King Mark, &c., amplifications have been
devised. It must, however, still be admitted that the extraordinary
rapidity with which so vast a growth of literature was produced,
apparently from the slenderest stock, is one of the most surprising
things in literary history. Before the middle of the twelfth century
little or nothing is heard of Arthur. Before that century closed at
least a dozen poems and romances in prose, many of them of great length,
had elaborated the whole legend as it was thenceforward received, and as
we have it condensed and Englished in Malory's well-known book two
centuries and a half later.
[Sidenote: Order of French Arthurian Cycle.]
The probable genesis of the Arthurian legend, in so far as it concerns
French literature, appears to be as follows. First in order of
composition, and also in order of thought, comes the Legend of Joseph of
Arimathea, sometimes called the 'Little St. Graal.' This we have both in
verse and prose, and one or both of these versions is the work of Robert
de Borron, a knight and _trouvere_ possessed of lands in the
Gatinais[52]. There is nothing in this work which is directly connected
with Arthur. By some it has been attributed to a Latin, but not now
producible, 'Book of the Graal,' by others to Byzantine originals.
Anyhow it fell into the hands of the well-known Walter Map[53], and his
exhaustless energy and invention at once seized upon it. He produced the
'Great St. Graal,' a very much extended version of the early history of
the sacred vase, still keeping clear of definite connection with Arthur,
though tending in that direction. From this, in its turn, sprang the
original form of _Percevale_, which represents a quest for the vessel
by a knight who has not originally anything to do with the Round Table.
The link of connection between the two stories is to be found in the