Rondeau (verse apprenticeship)

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Rondel and Rondeau

In French verse theory, the rondeau is a poem form with at least 8, but mostly 10 or 13 eight- to eleven-syllable verses and only two rhymes . The poem consists of three groups of verses, whereby the opening words of the first verse are repeated after the second group and at the end as an inconsistent refrain (French: rentrement ). If you count the rentrements , the rondeau has 12 or 15 lines. The rhyme scheme is in the 15-line form

[aabba aabR aabbaR],

where R denotes the refrain. The rhyme scheme of the 13 line form is

[abba abR abbaR].

As an example, a rondeau by Georg Rodolf Weckherlin ( An den hofe ):

Lucky too , you court and you court life,
because few grapes and vil vines,
because neither truth, loyal, nor breeding,
the splendor, lists and deceit,
interweave with meekness and stupidity .

you court where the sins stick, surrounded
with all vices,
you nest of indolence and fornication to
happiness .

your mouth is mild, your heart next to it,
always wrong, wants to float around unsteadily,
you have vil hope, little fruit;
That's why I
flee from you, and tell you, now my life is free:
happiness to you .

a
a
b
b
a

a
a
b
R

a
a
b
b
a
R

development

In a broader sense, rondeau denotes a whole group of related poetry forms, including triolet , rondel and roundel , all of which arose from medieval French song forms ( rondets or rondets de carole ). From the Renaissance onwards, the musical and literary forms developed separately and the 15-line rondeau established itself as the classic poem form . Examples are François Villons Mort, j'appelle de ta rigeur and Clément Marot's Au bon vieulx temps . Here is Villon's poem as an example of the 13-line form:

Mort, j'appelle de ta rigueur,
Qui m'as ma maistresse ravie,
Et n'es pas encore assouvie,
Se tu ne me tiens en langueur.
Onc puis n'euz force ne vigueur;
Mais que te nuysoit-elle en vie,
Mort?

Deux estions, et n'avions qu'ung cueur;
S'il est mort, force est que devie,
Voire, ou que je vive sans vie,
Comme les images, par cueur,
Mort!

In the 16th century the rondeau disappeared temporarily, but was then used again in the 17th century by the precious , especially Vincent Voiture . In the 19th century, the form was revived by Théodore de Banville . Its pattern was then adopted by English poets such as Henry Austin Dobson , Edmund Gosse , William Ernest Henley , Ernest Dowson , Thomas Hardy and Robert Bridges , and in America by Paul Laurence Dunbar ( We Wear the Mask ).

Certainly the best-known rondeau and one of the most well-known poems (at least in the Anglo-Saxon world) is In Flanders Fields by the Canadian John McCrae , in which he dealt with his grief over comrades who died in the World War in 1915:

In Flanders Fields , autograph by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw the
torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The poem was so popular that mentioned in the first line, thriving on the Flemish cemeteries poppies ( poppy ) were and the symbol on Remembrance Day , was born, November 11, in his lapel and ( remembrance poppy ), which is why the day also called Poppy Day . In 2001 the poem appeared on the Canadian 10 dollar bill.

In German poetry, replicas of the French form appear from the 16th century and above all among the Baroque poets, in addition to Weckherlin, Johann Fischart , Justus Georg Schottelius , Johann Klaj and Philipp von Zesen should be mentioned here. The German names of the form change: Ringelgedicht , Ringel-Ode , Ringelreimung , Rundum , Rundreim and Serpentinum Carmen ("snake poem "). The poems referred to as Rondeau by the anacreontist Johann Nikolaus Götz , however, are actually based on Rondel's form. The free translations of Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire by Otto Erich Hartleben that are occasionally mentioned in this context are also not rondeaus, but a 13-line form with the scheme similar to the rondel ABxx xxAB xxxxA, where x stands for rhyming orphans and A or B for identically repeated lines.

Rondeau redoublé

A complex special form of the rondeau is the rondeau redoublé ("doubled rondeau", also rondeau parfait "perfect rondeau"). It consists of six quatrains , i.e. a total of 24 verses with two rhymes. The verses of the first quatrain appear as the final verses of the following four quatrains. The rentrement follows at the end of the last quatrain . So the rhyme scheme is:

[ABA'B 'babA abaB babA' abaB 'babaR]

Examples of the consistently rare form can be found in French poetry by Thomas Sébillet , Clément Marot , Antoinette Deshoulières , Jean de La Fontaine and Théodore de Banville . As an example, Rondeau redoublé from La Fontaine:

Qu'un vain scrupule à ma flamme s'oppose,
Je ne le puis souffrir aucunement,
Bien que chacun en murmure et nous glose;
Et c'est assez pour perdre votre amant.

Si j'avois bruit de mauvais garnement,
Vous me pourriez bannir à juste cause;
Ne rayant point, c'est sans nul fondement
Qu'un vain scrupule à ma flamme s'oppose.

Que vous m'aimiez c'est pour moi lettre close;
Voire on diroit que quelque changement
À m'alléguer ces raisons vous dispose:
Je ne le puis souffrir aucunement.

Bien moins pourrois vous cacher mon tourment.
N'ayant pas mis au contract cette clause;
Toujours ferai l'amour ouvertement,
Bien que chacun en murmure et nous glose.

Ainsi s'aimer est plus doux qu'eau de rose;
Souffrez-le donc, Phyllis; car autrement.
Loin de vos yeux je vais faire une pose;
Et c'est assez pour perdre votre amant.

Pourriez-vous voir ce triste éloignement?
De vos faveurs doublez plutôt la dose.
Amour ne veut tant de raisonnement:
Ce point d'honneur, ma foi, n'est autre chose
Qu'un vain scrupule.

A
B
A '
B'

b
a
b
A

a
b
a
B

b
a
b
A '

a
b
a
B'

b
a
b
a
R

In the Anglo-Saxon region there are examples from Dorothy Parker ( Rondeau Redoublé (And Scarcely Worth the Trouble, At That) ) and Louis Untermeyer .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Rodolf Weckherlin: Poems. Leipzig 1873, p. 321, online .
  2. ^ Villon: Le Grand Testament No. 84.
  3. ^ Canadian Journey Series - $ 10 note , Bank of Canada . The first four verses appear on the lower left of the back, along with some poppy flowers and a dove of peace .
  4. ↑ Pierrot lunaire. Three times seven poems from Albert Giraud's "Songs of Pierrot Lunaire" (German by Otto Erich Hartleben) , texts, Arnold Schönberg Center
  5. ↑ Quoted in: Théodore de Banville: Petit Traité de poésie française. G. Charpentier, Paris 1881, pp. 208 f.