à l’antique . Imitations of the quantitative meters of Cl. pros. in Fr. verse mainly of the 16th c. Given the emphasis, during the Ren., on the imitation of Cl. models, it is not at all surprising that poets of the Pléiade (q.v.), i.e. Ron-sard, Baïf, and Jodelle, and their contemporaries (Pasquier and Jacques de la Taille) would want to transfer to poetry in the vernacular the metrical principles which had given rise to the august canon of Cl. poetry: how attain similar ends but by similar means? The impulse was particularly strong where direct translation was involved. These attempts usually entailed a rigid and quite arbitrary specification of quantitative values (long or short) for Fr. syllables, from which any functional distinction between long and short vowels had all but disappeared. Of the 16th-c. quantitative poets, Baïf was perhaps the most celebrated and most prolific (e.g. Etrenes de poézie fransoèze auvers mesurés , 1574, which contains hexameters, iambic trimeters, Sapphics, Alcaics, and other Cl. meters). Even though reactions to Baïf’s experiments were at best skeptical and at worst mockingly incredulous, others followed in his footsteps, notably Nicholas Rapin (ca. 1540–1608) and Agrippa d’Aubigné (1550–1630). After a prolonged absence, v. m. reappeared in the 18th c., championed by l’Abbé d’Olivet and Turgot. V. m. work best when supported by rhyme—a most unclass-ical device, but long perceived as an essential rhythmic point de repere for the Fr. ear—and when patterns of accented and unaccented vowels are made to correspond to Cl. patterns of long and short (i.e. accentual imitations of quantitative verse). But even where this latter equivalence is practiced, the gradual weakening of the Fr. accent, with its consequent shift from word to word-group, has left fewer accents at the Fr. poet’s disposal than there are long syllables in the Cl. meter being imitated. The greater frequency of accents in Eng. and Ger. is one reason why verse based on Cl. meters has had a longer history in these two poetries.
User Comments Add a comment…