Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/127

* VERSIFICATION". (lam is rliyiiio found ponfiiipil to thp samp sound of tlip ponsonnnl. or on an nnnpccntpd syllablp, or binding apppntpd with unaocpntpd syllablps. Howcvpr, from the beginning of tlip sixtppnth century in Italian, under fhe inlhipnce of plassic Latin, rhyniplpss verses [rcrsi sriottij arp found, which wpre used in various genres and were well lilvpd, as is shown by thpir use in Trissino's .S'o/"o- nisba. Ariosto's comedies, UueeUai's Apt, and Allc- manni's Voltirazione. Tlve Spanish t'ccsos suel- tos, the French vers hhincs, and also English blank verse are learned productions and largely imitations of Italian models. Verses without assonance or rhyme are not present in tlip older French and Provencal poctr}'; unbound single lines like those at the ends of the tirades in Aucassin et 'Nicolctte are very rare. The fundamental prinpiples of Romance versi- fication lie, then, in a fixed number of syllables before the last accented syllable of each syllabic series and verse, and in the like sound of the last accented vowels respectively of the last ac- cented syllables of at least two verse lines. It is probable that the roots of Romanpp versifiea- tion go back even to the time of archaic Latin. By the first century a.d. there is a perfppted sj-s- tem of fixed syllable count. In vulgar Latin verse, the coincidence of verse and word accpnt is frequently met. and especially at the end of the verse. Alliteration is very popular here, and alliteration from principle is proper only in ac- cented verse. It is necessary to presuppose an accented old Latin poetry from which Romance versification is descended. The gradual development of Romance asso- nance and rhyme out of analogous bindings of the syllabic series and verses in older popu- lar Latin poetry is as probable as the similar development of popular Romance versp. Such bindings are found onl_y sporadically in Latin learned poetry, and the examples foiuid in Com- modianus and Saint Augustine are doubtless mere borrowings from popular use. Assonance or rhyme was obligatory to Romance authors from tlte very beginning, and its origin lies as far back as the principle of the fixed number of syllables. The strophes of popular Romance verse were of two kinds: those which came from very primitive vulgar Latin forms, and those in the poetry of trained artists, who borrowed their models partly from popular poetry, but also from the perfected forms of middle Latin and other artistic literatures. Romance versifications, by their accent, fall into two great groups, iaiiibie or trochaic verse, verse with rising or falling rhythm. Lender the first group, the ten-syllable verse is the most Romance of all Romance verses. The oldest form of this is that which has an extra syllable at the end of the hemistich or verse. These extra syllables could fall in the development of Ro- mance tongues without changing the rhythm. The twelve-syllable versp with accented sixth (or fourth ) and eleventh syllables must be consid- ered as the oldest historical ancestor of the ten-syllable verse, and this twelve- syllable verse probably goes back to a fourteen-syllablp form with accented sixth and twelfth, and ponsidpr- ations from the history of language strengthen this view. This ten-syllable verse with aecpnted sixth or fourth syllable was the verse of the Chanson de Roland and of most of the assonated 93 VEBSIFICATION. cliiinsuiis (/(' i/cs/c, and is generally cMiinnion in I'rpnph lyrics. I'rom the end of the tuidfth cen- tury it lost ground, but in the fourt<'<'ntli anti fiftppiith centuries it readied popuhirily again as ' vers comniun,' and then gradually died out. The Provpn(al ten-syllable verse is not neees- sarily borrowed from France, but is early found and nuipli used in ['roven(al lyrics. In Italian the nidrcasilluho, as the ten-.syllable verse is called, because of its regular feminine verse- ending, has held almo.st undis])uted sway in all litprary gpnrps from the thirteenth century to the present day. It is probably a native growth, strongly influenced by the Provencal ten-syllable verse. The ten-syllable verse entered Spain with Provencal poetry, and was sparingly and closely imitated. Jn the fifteenth century came a new introduction from Italy, and it was very popular for a time, yet it was built entirely on Italian models. ^ The eight-syllable verse is partly of popular origin, and can be followed nearly as far back as the ten-syllable. At first it shows two fixed accented syllables, and was among the most popu- lar versifications of French and Provencal litera- ture. All narrative poetry of the ifiddle Ages in Xortli and South France use the eight-syllalile versp, and the courtly epos ;ind older ■ dr;iiii-i are nearly exclusively eight-syllable. It is gen- erally rhymed in pairs in this period. Since the middle of the sixteenth century it has lost ground and is now used only in lyrics. It is a stranger to Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In France the twelve-syllable versp with ac- centpd sixth succeeded to thp place of the ten and eight-syllable verses. Fir.st called Alexandrine in the fifteenth century, it was much used in c}iaiisons dr fimte. and in drama and didactic poetry of the Middle Ages. Out of style in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it became the verse of classicism in the sixteenth century, and has been important ever since. The rhyming in pairs, so common in Renaissance poetry, is very seldom found in earlier times. In Provencal the twelve-syllable verse is used far less than in France, and is probably an imitation. In Italian are found some early examples, and also in folk- song, so that ]ierhaps it is native and ancestor of the ten-.syllable verse with accented sixth. The earliest twelve-syllable verses in Spain are in the thirteenth c'pntury. They are distinctly imi- tations of French Alexandrines and are bound in four-line strophes of one rhyme, exactly as in France. Moreover, they are always called versos franceses. The twelve-syllable verse with accented foiirth, eighth, and twelfth syllables, is of popular origin, and is found somewhat in French and Provencal poetry. The six-syllable verse is a free creation of the Romance people and is considerably found in Italian as the scttenario, though seldom used as the exclusivp vprse of a complete poem. It is less used in Provencal, modern French, and old Portuguese lyrics. The four-syllable and two-syllable verses are found in lyrics, and are due to dissection of longer verses. The trochaic verses are native to Spain and Portugal, and are generally little used in France, Provence, and Italy. The fourteen-syllable verse with accentccJ