A Short History of French Literature Part 4

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 _s.e.xtine_, 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 ent.i.tled _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 ent.i.tled _La n.o.bla Leyczon_, to which ignorance and sectarian enthusiasm had given a much earlier date, are now a.s.signed. There is also a considerable ma.s.s 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 antic.i.p.ated. Every mood, every situation of pa.s.sion, was catalogued and a.n.a.lysed, and the proper method of treatment, with similes and metaphors complete, was a.s.signed.

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 compet.i.tors 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 _Auca.s.sin et Nicolette_.

Paris, 1856.

CHAPTER IV.

ROMANCES OF ARTHUR AND OF ANTIQUITY.

[Sidenote: The Tale of Arthur. Its Origins.]

The pa.s.sion 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 _Merlin_, attributed also to Robert de Borron, wherein the Welsh legends begin to have more definite influence. This, in its turn, leads to _Artus_, which gives the early history of the great king. Then comes the most famous, most extensive, and finest of all the romances, that of _Lancelot du Lac_, which is pretty certainly in part, and perhaps in great part, the work of Map; as is also the mystical and melancholy but highly poetical _Quest of the Saint Graal_, a quest of which Galahad and Lancelot, not, as in the earlier legends, Percival, are the heroes. To this succeeds the _Mort Artus_, which forms the conclusion of the whole, properly speaking. This, however, does not entirely complete the cycle.

Later than Borron, Map, and their unknown fellow-workers (if such they had), arose one or more _trouveres_, who worked up the ancient Celtic legends and lays of Tristram into the Romance of _Tristan_, connecting this, more or less clumsily, with the main legend of the Round Table.

Other legends were worked up into the _omnium gatherum_ of _Giron le Courtois_, and with this the cycle proper ceases. The later poems are attributed to two persons, called Luce de Gast and Helie de Borron. But not the slightest testimony can be adduced to show that any such persons ever had existence[54].

These prose romances form for the most part the original literature of the Arthurian story. But the vogue of this story was very largely increased by a _trouvere_ who used not prose but octosyllabic verse for his medium.

[Sidenote: Chrestien de Troyes.]

As is the case with most of these early writers, little or nothing is known of Chrestien de Troyes but his name. He lived in the last half of the twelfth century, he was attached to the courts of Flanders, Hainault, and Champagne, and he wrote most of his works for the lords of these fiefs. Besides his Arthurian work he translated Ovid, and wrote some short poems. Chrestien de Troyes deserves a higher place in literature than has sometimes been given to him. His versification is so exceedingly easy and fluent as to appear almost pedestrian at times; and his _Chevalier a la Charrette_, by which he is perhaps most generally known, contrasts unfavourably in its prolixity with the nervous and picturesque prose to which it corresponds. But _Percevale_ and the _Chevalier au Lyon_ are very charming poems, deeply imbued with the peculiar characteristics of the cycle--religious mysticism, pa.s.sionate gallantry, and refined courtesy of manners. Chrestien de Troyes undoubtedly contributed not a little to the popularity of the Arthurian legends. Although, by a singular chance, which has not yet been fully explained, the originals appear to have been for the most part in prose, the times were by no means ripe for the general enjoyment of work in such a form. The reciter was still the general if not the only publisher, and recitation almost of necessity implied poetical form.

Chrestien did not throw the whole of the work of his contemporaries into verse, but he did so throw a considerable portion of it. His Arthurian works consist of _Le Chevalier a la Charrette_, a very close rendering of an episode of Map's _Lancelot_; _Le Chevalier au Lyon_, resting probably upon some previous work not now in existence; _Erec et enide_, the legend which every English reader knows in Mr. Tennyson's _Enid_, and which seems to be purely Welsh; _Cliges_, which may be called the first Roman d'Aventures; and lastly, _Percevale_, a work of vast extent, continued by successive versifiers to the extent of some fifty thousand lines, and probably representing in part a work of Robert de Borron, which has only recently been printed by M. Hucher. _Percevale_ is, perhaps, the best example of Chrestien's fas.h.i.+on of composition. The work of Borron is very short, amounting in all to some ninety pages in the reprint. The _Percevale le Gallois_ of Chrestien and his continuators, on the other hand, contains, as has been said, more than forty-five thousand verses. This amplification is produced partly by the importation of incidents and episodes from other works, but still more by indulging in constant diffuseness and what we must perhaps call commonplaces.

[Sidenote: Spirit and Literary value of Arthurian Romances.]

From a literary point of view the prose romances rank far higher, especially those in which Map is known or suspected to have had a hand.

The peculiarity of what may be called their atmosphere is marked. An elaborate and romantic system of mystical religious sentiment, finding vent in imaginative and allegorical narrative, a remarkable refinement of manners, and a combination of delight in battle with devotion to ladies, distinguish them. This is, in short, the romantic spirit, or, as it is sometimes called, the spirit of chivalry; and it cannot be too positively a.s.serted that the Arthurian romances communicate it to literature for the first time, and that nothing like it is found in the cla.s.sics. In the work of Map and his contemporaries it is clearly perceivable. The most important element in this--courtesy--is, as we have already noticed, almost entirely absent from the Chansons de Gestes, and where it is present at all it is between persons who are connected by some natural or artificial relation of comrades.h.i.+p or kin.

Nor are there many traces of it in such fragments and indications as we possess of the Celtic originals, which may have helped in the production of the Arthurian romances. No Carlovingian knight would have felt the horror of Sir Bors when the Lady of Hungerford exercises her undoubted right by flinging the body of her captive enemy on the camp of his uncle. Even the chiefs who are presented in the _Chanson d'Antioche_ as joking over the cannibal banquet of the Roi des Tafurs, and permitting the dead bodies of Saracens to be torn from the cemeteries and flung into the beleaguered city, would have very much applauded the deed.

Gallantry, again, is as much absent from the Chansons as clemency and courtesy. The scene in _Lancelot_, where Galahault first introduces the Queen and Lancelot to one another, contrasts in the strongest manner with the downright courts.h.i.+p by which the Bellicents and Nicolettes of the Carlovingian cycle are won. No doubt Map represents to a great extent the sentiments of the polished court of England. But he deserves the credit of having been the first, or almost the first, to express such manners and sentiments, perhaps also of having being among the first to conceive them.

These originals are not all equally represented in Malory's English compilation. Of Robert de Borron's work little survives except by allusion. _Lancelot du Lac_ itself, the most popular of all the romances, is very disproportionately drawn upon. Of the youth of Lancelot, of the winning of Dolorous Gard, of the war with the Saxons, and of the very curious episode of the false Guinevere, there is nothing; while the most charming story of Lancelot's relations with Galahault of Sorelois disappears, except in a few pa.s.sing allusions to the 'haughty prince.' On the other hand, the _Quest of the Saint Graal_, the _Mort Artus_, some episodes of _Lancelot_ (such as the _Chevalier a la Charrette_), and many parts of _Tristan_ and _Giron le Courtois_, are given almost in full.

It seems also probable that considerable portions of the original form of the Arthurian legends are as yet unknown, and have altogether perished. The very interesting discovery in the Brussels Library, of a prose _Percevale_ not impossibly older than Chrestien, and quite different from that of Borron, is an indication of this fact. So also is the discovery by Dr. Jonckbloet in the Flemish _Lancelot_, which he has edited, of pa.s.sages not to be found in the existing and recognised French originals. The truth would appear to be that the fascination of the subject, the unusual genius of those who first treated it, and the tendency of the middle ages to favour imitation, produced in a very short s.p.a.ce of time (the last quarter or half of the twelfth century) an immense amount of original handling of Geoffrey's theme. To this original period succeeded one of greater length, in which the legends were developed not merely by French followers and imitators of Chrestien, but by his great German adapters, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried of Strasburg, Hartmann von der Aue, and by other imitators at home and abroad. Lastly, as we shall see in a future chapter, come Romans d'Aventures, connecting themselves by links more or less immediate with the Round Table cycle, but independent and often quite separate in their main incidents and catastrophes.

The great number, length, and diversity of the Arthurian romances make it impossible in the s.p.a.ce at our command to abstract all of them, and useless to select any one, inasmuch as no single poem is (as in the case of the Chansons) typical of the group. The style, however, of the prose and verse divisions may be seen in the following extracts from the _Chevalier a la Charrette_ of Map, and the verse of Chrestien:--

Atant sont venu li chevalier jusqu'au pont: lors commencent a plorer top durement tuit ensamble. Et Lanceloz lor demande porquoi il plorent et font tel duel? Et il dient que c'est por l'amor de lui, que trop est perillox li ponz. Atant esgarde Lanceloz l'eve de ca et de la: si voit que ele est noire et coranz. Si avint que sa veue torna devers la cite, si vit la tor ou la rane estoit as fenestres. Lanceloz demande quel vile c'est la?--'Sire, font-il, c'est le leus ou la rane est.' Si li noment la cite. Et il lor dit: 'Or n'aiez garde de moi, que ge dont mains le pont que ge onques mes ne fis, ne il n'est pas si perilleux d'a.s.sez comme ge cuidoie. Mes moult a de la outre bele tor, et s'il m'i voloient hebergier il m'i auroient encor ennuit a hoste.'

Lors descent et les conforte toz moult durement, et lor dit que il soient ausinc tout a.s.seur comme il est. Il li lacent les pans de son hauberc ensenble et li cousent a gros fil de fer qu'il avoient aporte, et ses manches meesmes li cousent dedenz ses mains, et les piez desoz; et a bone poiz chaude li ont peez les manicles et tant d'espes comme il ot entre les cuisses. Et ce fu por miauz tenir contre le trenchant de l'espee.

Quant il orent Lancelot atorne et bien et bel si lor prie que il s'en aillent. Et il s'en vont, et le font naigier outre l'eve, et il enmainent son cheval. Et il vient a la planche droit: puis esgarde vers la tor ou la rane estoit en prison, si li encline. Apres fet le signe de la verroie croiz enmi son vis, et met son escu derriers son dos, qu'il ne li nuise. Lors se met desor la planche en chevauchons, si se trane par desus si armez comme il estoit, car il ne li faut ne hauberc ne espee ne chauces ne heaume ne escu. Et cil de la tor qui le veoient en sont tuit esbah, ne il n'i a nul ne nule qui saiche veroiement qui il est; mes qu'il voient qu'il trane pardesus l'espee trenchant a la force des braz et a l'enpaignement des genouz; si ne remaint pas por les filz de fer que des piez et des mains et des genous ne saille li sanz. Mes por cel peril de l'espee qui trenche et por l'eve noire et bruiant et parfonde ne remaint que plus ne resgart vers la tor que vers l'eve, ne plaie ne angoisse qu'il ait ne prise naient; car se il a cele tor pooit venir il garroit tot maintenant de ses max. Tant s'est hertiez et tranez qu'il est venuz jusqu'a terre.

This becomes in the poem a pa.s.sage more than 100 lines long, of which the beginning and end may be given:--

Le droit chemin vont cheminant, Tant que li jors vet declinant, Et vienent au pon de l'espee Apres none, vers la vespree.

Au pie del' pont, qui molt est max, Sont descendu de lor chevax, Et voient l'eve felenesse Noire et bruiant, roide et espesse, Tant leide et tant espoantable Com se fust li fluns au deable; Et tant perilleuse et parfonde Qu'il n'est riens nule an tot le monde S'ele i cheoit, ne fust alee Ausi com an la mer betee.

Et li ponz qui est an travers Estoit de toz autres divers, Qu'ainz tex ne fu ne james n'iert.

Einz ne fu, qui voir m'an requiert, Si max pont ne si male planche: D'une espee forbie et blanche Estoit li ponz sor l'eve froide.

Mes l'espee estoit forz et roide, Et avoit deus lances de lonc.

De chasque part ot uns grant tronc Ou l'espee estoit cloffichiee.

Ja nus ne dot que il i chiee.

Porce que ele brist ne ploit.

Si ne sanble-il pas qui la voit Qu'ele puisse grant fes porter.

Ce feisoit molt desconforter Les deus chevaliers qui estoient Avoec le tierz, que il cuidoient Que dui lyon ou dui liepart Au chief del' pont de l'autre part Fussent lie a un perron.

L'eve et li ponz et li lyon Les metent an itel freor Que il tranblent tuit de peor.

Cil ne li sevent plus que dire, Mes de pitie plore et sopire Li uns et li autres molt fort.

Et cil de trespa.s.ser le gort Au mialz que il set s'aparoille, Et fet molt estrange mervoille, Que ses piez desire et ses mains.

N'iert mie toz antiers ne sains Quant de l'autre part iert venuz.