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Chaucer also frequently makes use of Enjambement, i.e. one verse runs on into the next owing to the close grammatical connection. Chaucer constructs longer sentences than was usual before his time; cp. BD 1-8. 9-15. 16-27 etc., HF 2-52. 53–65. 66-93 etc.

The enjambement differs in character according as two closely or more loosely connected parts of a sentence are separated by the end of a verse. The pause, when wanting at the end of the verse, usually occurs at the beginning or in the middle of the following verse; cp.

Not longe tyme to endure || Withoute slepe, BD 20f.
My-selven can not telle why || The sothe; 34f.

To tellen shortly, whan that he || Was in the see, 68 f.
Hath wonder that the king ne come || Hoom, 79f.

I ferde the worse al the morwe || After, 99f.
And yeve me grace my lord to see || Sone, 111 f.
and thus the dede sleep || Fil on her, 127f.

For as she prayde, so was don || In dede; 131f.
Sey thus on my halfe that he || Go faste into the grete see
139 f.

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... for I certeynly || Ne can hem noght, HF 14 f.

In which ther were mo images || Of gold, 121 f.
And how he fledde, and how that he || Escaped was from
al the pres, 166f.

That, shortly for to tellen, she || Becam his love, 242f.
Ywis, my dere herte, ye || Knowen ful wel 326 f. etc.

§ 184. Sir Thopas.

Chaucer has used short rimed couplets in stanzas only in Sir Thopas (CT. B 1902-2108), which is

written in six-line anisometrical tail-rime stanzas
(§ 177) of various kinds. The poem begins
(B 1902-79) with the form a a, b, a a, b:
Listeth, lordes, in good entent,

And I wol telle you verrayment
Of mirthe and of solas,

Al of a knyght was fair and gent
In bataille and in tourneyment;

His name was Sir Thopas etc.

This is used also in 2029-46 and 2059-64, whilst in 2017-22, 2047-58, 2065-70 and 2081-2108 the couplets have different rimes, e.g. 2081 ff.: Now hold your mouth, par charitee,

Bothe knight and lady free,

And herkneth to my spelle;

Of bataille and of chivalry

And of ladyes love-drury

Anon I wol yow telle.

In one stanza (B 2023-28) the tail-rime lines have two beats (a a, b, a a, b) as in the Beves stanza (§ 154. 177):

Yet listeth, lordes, to my tale,

Merier than the nightingale,

I wol yow roune

How sir Thopas with sydes smale

Priking over hill and dale

Is come to toune.

NOTE. Some scribes and the editions unnecessarily extend the tail-rime lines to three beats: | For now | I wol | you rounе Is come ageyn | to toune.

In some stanzas Chaucer introduces a bob-verse; he has probably in his mind the Tristrem stanza and the thirteen-line alliterative stanza (§ 174 f.).

This bob-verse is either before the second part of

the stanza: a a, b 1 b b, c, B. 1980-86:

4

An elf-queen wol I love, ywis.

For in this world no womman is
Worthy to be my make

In toune;

Alle othere wommen I forsake,

And to an elf-queen I me take

By dale and eek by doune,

or is used to connect a new part of a stanza: a a b a a, b 1 a a4 Cg (B 1987-1996), a a, b, a a bз

21

3

dd cз (B 1997-2006), a a b c c1 bз d1 c c1 dg (B 2007-2026) or a a, b, c c bз d1 e е dg, B 2071 to 2080:

NOTE.

His spere was of fyn cyprees,

That bodeth werre, and nothing pees,

The heed ful sharpe ygrounde;

His stede was al dappel-gray,

It gooth an ambel in the way
Ful softely and rounde
In londe.

So, lordes myne, heer is a fit!

If ye wol any more of it,

To telle it wol I fonde.

By using so many different stanzas in such a short poem (200 verses) Chaucer did not aim at satirizing the lack of skill of the poets, who could not observe the same stanza form throughout a whole poem, as was earlier assumed, for, as noted in § 178, the poets are not here at fault, but only the scribes and reciters. On the contrary, as Kölbing (Engl. Stud. 11, 495 ff.) argues, Chaucer aimed at outdoing the popular poets in the artificiality of stanza formation and at making fun of them. At the same time he wished to show that these stanza forms hinder the

regular flow of the narrative and tend to encourage a great use of meaningless phrases.

§ 185. Gower's, Barbour's and Lydgate's Short rimed Couplet.

Gower's couplet in his Confessio Amantis is still more regular than Chaucer's. Since he never uses two consecutive unstressed syllables and never omits the anacrusis, his verse has always eight syllables when masculine, and nine syllables when feminine; thus it is exactly like the French eightsyllable verse; cp. C.A. I, 1 ff.:

I may noght strecchen up to hevene
Min hand, ne setten al in evene
This world, which evere is in balance;
It stant noght in my suffisance
So grete thinges to compasse.
But I mot lete it overpasse
And treten upon other thinges:
Forthy the stile of my writinges
Fro this day forth I thenke chaunge,
And speke of thing is noght so straunge,
Which every kinde hath upon honde,
And wherupon the world mot stonde
And hath don sithen it began

And schal whil there is any man,
And that is Love, of whiche I mene

To trete, as after shal be sene etc.

We need not be astonished that Gower imitates

French verse so exactly even in counting the syllables, for he is also the author of a French oem (c. 30000 verses) in the same measure. This m, Mirour de l'Omme (Speculum Hominis), was

discovered by G. C. Macaulay in 1896 and edited by him in 1899.

Barbour's short rimed couplet is also fairly regular; cp. Bruce V 19 ff.:

bai rowit fast with all þar mycht

Till þat apon þam fell be nycht
þat it wox myrk on gret manere

swa þat þai wist nocht quhar þai were,
for þai na nedill had na stane,
bot rowit alwayis in till ane,
stemmand alwayis apon þe fyre

þat þai saw byrnand licht and schire.

Lydgate, on the other hand, often omits the anacrusis; cp. Reason and Sensuality ed. Sieper (EETS. 84) 101 ff.:

This is the lusty sesoun newe

Which every thing causeth renewe
And rejoyssheth in his kynde
Commonly as men may fynde
In these herbes white and rede
Which spryngen in the grene mede
Norysshed wyth the sonne shene
So that alle the soyl ys grene etc.

$186. The Heroic Verse.

In most of his poems Chaucer uses a verse, not known to English Literature before his time, viz. a verse with five feet. This is called the heroic verse, and when it is used in rimed couplets, the heroic couplet. Chaucer first used this verse in seven-line or eight-line stanzas (§ 194 f.), e.g. in The Compleynte unto Pitee, and in other short

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