use of enjambement, to which is related the movement of the caesura", and this is especially true "of his treatment of the heroic verse, especially in the finest passages in the Canterbury Tales". A few examples are here given:

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth || The tendre croppes A 6 f.

by aventure yfalle || In felawshipe 25 f.

That in hir coppe was no ferthing sene || Of grece 134 f. And peyned hire to countrefete chere || Of court 139f.

And whan he rood, men mighte his brydel here || Ginglen

169 f.

to visyte || The ferreste in his parisshe 493 f. Upon the cop right of his nose he hade || A werte 554f. Rime-breaking (§ 167. 183) is also frequently used in heroic verse. It is most common when the second verse of a couplet begins a new passage, cf. Prologue to CT.:

A forster was he sothly, as I gesse.

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse. 117f.

His palfrey was as broun as is a berye.

A Frere ther was, a wantoun and a merye 207f.

This worthy limitour was cleped Huberd.

A Marchaunt was ther with a forked berd 269 f. etc.

NOTE. Alden (Engl. Verse, p. 177) says of Chaucer's heroic verse: "Too much praise cannot be given Chaucer's use of the couplet. Although it was an experiment in English verse, it has perhaps hardly been used since his time with greater skill. He used a variety of cesuras, a very large number of feminine endings, free inversions in the first foot and elsewhere and many run-on lines. The total effect is one of combined freedom and mastery, of fluent conversational style yet within the limits of guarded artistic form."

§ 193. Chaucer's use of Rime and Alliteration.

Chaucer is particulary careful in his use of rime. He avoids assonance and impure rime (§ 141-143). Thus the correctness of the rime is a good test in dealing with the poems ascribed to him in the editions of the sixteenth century. Chaucer is fond of broken rime (§ 139) and the various kinds of identical rime (§ 145 ff.); cf. Kaluza, Chaucer u. d. Rosenroman, p. 63ff.

Chaucer also uses the customary alliterative formulae in his poems with skill; cp. ten Brink § 334-342.

§ 194. Chaucer's Seven-line Stanza.

The stanza which Chaucer uses in Troilus and Criseyde, The Parlement of Foules and many shorter poems is of the form a babbcc. It has three parts, the pedes a b, a b and the cauda bee; but this division is not always observed, the final couplet frequently stands alone; cp. Troilus I, 1ff.:

The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen

That was the king Priamus sone of Troye,

In lovinge how his aventures fellen
Fro wo to wele and after out of joye,
My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye.
Tesiphone, thou help me for t'endyte
Thise woful vers that wepen as I wryte,

or Parlement of Foules 22 ff.:

For out of olde feldes, as men seith,

Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere,

And out of olde hokes, in good feith,

Cometh al this newe science that men lere.
But now to purpos as of this matere
To rede forth hit gan me so delyte

That al the day me thoughte but a lyte.

Chaucer took this stanza from French verse (cp. ten Brink § 347 and Skeat, Chaucer's Works VI, LIXf.); but it is his merit to have introduced it into English poetry and to have used it with skill. In French and Provencal poetry the final couplet often contained the first rime (a babbaa), but Chaucer always uses a new rime (ababbcc), which made the riming easier and gave the stanza a firmer end.

Chaucer's seven-line stanza is somewhat similar to the Italian ottava rima (abababcc), since both end with a couplet, containing a new rime. But the structure of the two stanzas is different, and there is no ground for the earlier assumption that Chaucer derived his stanza from the Italian by omitting the fifth verse. Equally groundless is the derivation of this stanza from the eight-line stanza a ba bbcbc (§ 172. 195) by the omission of the seventh verse.

The seven-line Chaucerian stanza, or rhyme royal, as it was later named, was much used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by English and Scotch poets (Hoccleve, Lydgate, King James I etc.) and was used even in drama. Shakespeare used this stanza for his Rape of Lucrece. In the nineteenth century it was used by William Morris.

NOTE. The nine-line stanza, a aba a b b c c, which Chaucer uses in The Compleynt of Mars 155-298, is to be looked on as an extension of the seven-line stanza with double a lines. Another nine-line stanza, a a b a abba b, with another kind of conclusion, is used in Anelida and Arcite 211 ff. e.g. 220 ff.:

I wot myself as wel as any wight;

For I loved oon with al my herte and might

More then myself an hundred thousand sythe
And called him my hertes lyf, my knight,
And was al his, as fer as hit was right,

And whan that he was glad, than was I blythe,

And his disese was my deeth as swythe;

And he ayein his trouthe me had plight

For evermore his lady me to kythe.

This nine-line stanza is also used by Dunbar in The Golden Targe and Gawain Douglas in The Palace of Honour (§ 198).

§ 195. Chaucer's Eight-line Stanza.

In The Monkes Tale and in some shorter poems (ABC, The Former Age, Fortune etc.) Chaucer uses an eight-line stanza, a b a b b c bc, e.g. The Monkes Tale B 3428 ff.:

Lordinges, ensample heer-by may ye take

How that in lordshipe is no sikernesse;
For whan Fortune wol a man forsake,

She bereth awey his regne and his richesse
And eek his freendes, bothe more and lesse.
For what man that hath freendes thurgh Fortune,
Mishap wol make hem enemys, as I gesse:

This proverbe is ful sooth and ful commune.

The same stanza with verses of four beats was used in England before Chaucer; cp. § 172.

NOTE. Chaucer also introduced the French ballade, e.g. Truth, Gentilesse, Lak of Stedfastnesse, Compleint to his Purse Rosemounde. It consists of three seven-line or eight-line stanzas, in which the same rimes recur in the corresponding positions. The last verse is also a refrain. A fourth stanza with the same or different rime-order may follow as Envoy; cp. ten Brink § 350

In a part of the Compleint to his Lady (15—43) Chaucer attempted the terza rima (aba bcb etc.); the attempt appears not to have satisfied him, for at line 44 he adopts a ten-line stanza (a a ba a bcddc).

§ 196. Hoccleve.

Hoccleve (EETS. ES. 61, 72, 73) nearly always uses the seven-line and eight-line stanzas of Chaucer. His rimes are correct, his verse-structure regular. He is almost a syllable-counter; cp. Bock, Metrische Studien zu Th. Hoccleves Werken. München 1900.

The initial unstressed syllable is never omitted, and two unstressed syllables never come together, except in case of elision. The uniformity in the number of syllables is achieved only by giving a stress to the article the and the weak final and medial syllables, whilst syllables with a strong stress are used in the unstressed position; cp. e.g. The Compleynt of the Virgin Mary (EETS. ES.61): And the tetés 45, And séint Anné 58, Shamély náked 84, euél 92, Mighté nat 117, his fadír Noé 139, þát nakid was hé 140, þat mé yeuést any othír than thée 165, Tornéd 188, which was the beautée 188, Of mý namé 189, By the folk 206, And ámendés 237 etc.