out the general lines along which the verse-forms were developed, or were perhaps retarded. Three may be distinguished. The first is marked by the retention of quantity and the endeavour to preserve the ancient measures. In the second, accent and rhyme gradually take the place of metre within the old verse-forms. The third is that of the Sequence, wherein the accentual rhyming hymn springs from the chanted prose, which had superseded the chanting of the final a of the Alleluia.[1]
I
The lover of classical Greek and Latin poetry knows the beautiful fitness of the ancient measures for the thought and feeling which they enframed. If his eyes chance to fall on some twelfth-century Latin hymn, he will be struck by its different quality. He will quickly perceive that classic forms would have been unsuited to the Christian and romantic sentiment of the mediaeval period,[2] and will realize that some vehicle besides metrical verse would have been needed for this thoroughly declassicized feeling, even had metrical quantity remained a vital element of language, instead of passing away some centuries before. Metre was but resuscitation and convention in the time of Charlemagne. Yet it kept its sway with scholars, and could not lack votaries so long as classical poetry made part of the Ars grammatica or was read for delectation. Metrical composition did not cease throughout the Middle Ages. But it was not the true mediaeval style, and became obviously academic as accentual verse was perfected and made fit to carry spiritual emotion.
- ↑ In order that no reader may be surprised by the absence of discussion of the antique antecedents of the more particular genres of mediaeval poetry (Latin and Vernacular), I would emphasize the impossibility of entering upon such exhaustless topics. Probably the very general assumption will be correct in most cases, that genres of mediaeval poetry (e.g. the Conflicts or Débats in Latin and Old French) revert to antecedents sufficiently marked for identification, in the antique Latin (or Greek) poetry, or in the (extant or lost) productions of the "low" Latin period from the third century downward. An idea of the difficulty and range of such matters may be gained from Jeanroy, Les Origines de la poésie lyrique en France an moyen âge (Paris, 1889), and the admirable review of this work by Gaston Paris in the Journal des savants for 1891 and 1892 (four articles). Cf. also Batiouchkof in Romania, xx. (1891), pages 1 sqq. and 513 sqq.
- ↑ Cf. Taylor, Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages, chap. ix.
