Chanson de Geste - Versification

Versification

Early chansons de geste were typically composed in ten-syllable lines grouped in assonanced (meaning that the last stressed vowel is the same in each line throughout the stanza, but the last consonant differs from line to line) stanzas (called laisses). These stanzas are of variable length.

An example from the Chanson de Roland illustrates the technique of the ten-syllable assonanced form. The assonance in this stanza is on e:

Desuz un pin, delez un eglanter

Un faldestoed i unt, fait tout d'or mer:

La siet li reis ki dulce France tient.

Blanche ad la barbe et tut flurit le chef,

Gent ad le cors et le cuntenant fier.

S'est kil demandet, ne l'estoet enseigner.

Under a pine tree, by a rosebush,

there is a throne made entirely of gold.

There sits the king who rules sweet France;

his beard is white, with a full head of hair.

He is noble in carriage, and proud of bearing.

If anyone is looking for the King, he doesn't need to be pointed out.

Later chansons were composed in monorhyme stanzas, in which the last syllable of each line rhymes fully throughout the stanza. Later chansons also tended to be composed using alexandrines (twelve-syllable) lines, instead of ten-syllable lines (some early chansons, such as Girart de Vienne, were even adapted into a twelve-syllable version).

The following example of the twelve-syllable rhymed form is from the opening lines of Les Chétifs, a chanson in the Crusade cycle. The rhyme is on ie:

Or s'en fuit Corbarans tos les plains de Surie,

N'enmaine que .ii. rois ens en sa conpaignie.

S'enporte Brohadas, fis Soudan de Persie;

En l'estor l'avoit mort a l'espee forbie

Li bons dus Godefrois a le chiere hardie

Tres devant Anthioce ens en la prairie.

So Corbaran escaped across the plains of Syria;

He took only two kings in his company.

He carried away Brohadas, son of the Sultan of Persia,

Who had been killed in the battle by the clean sword

Of the brave-spirited good duke Godfrey

Right in front of Antioch, down in the meadow.

These forms of versification were substantially different than the forms found in the Old French verse romances (romans) which were written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets.