French tale in verse

The fabliau (of Picardy the fabliau, itself resulting from Latin fabula) means small account literally; it is the name which one gives in the French literature of the Middle Ages to little stories in worms simple and amusing, and which hardly propose but to distract or to make laugh listeners or readers.

It is the difference which they present with other forms which are close for them: the known as ones, which is accounts treating of a completely different subject; novels, with the longer and more complex contents; songs naturally intended to be sung; moralities aiming at building; alluviums, stories of love having a nobler style, and where often one utilized the imaginary one.

A specialist, Joseph Bedier, estimates at nearly 150 these accounts written between 1159 and 1340, in majority in the provinces of north - Picardy, Artois and Flanders. Part of their subjects belongs to the inheritance of all the countries, all the people and all the times; certain subjects appeared specifically in India or Greece; but the greatest quantity of these French tale in verse was born in France, which proves either the characteristics of described manners, or the language, or historical indications of names or of events.

The authors are clerks carrying out a wandering life, clerks gyrovagues or clerks goliards, of the jugglers, sometimes of the poets having composed of another way, of the poet-amateurs belonging to orders different from the clergy. Consequently good number of French tale in verse are anonymous and if we know certain authors by their name, it is there that our science is limited. Most known are Rutebeuf, Philippe de Beaumanoir, Henri d' Andeli, Huon the King, Gautier the leu.

The public, to which applied the authors of the French tale in verse belonged especially to the middle-class (even if sometimes these French tale in verse penetrated the high society); this is why their design of the world reflects the spirit of the middle-class perfectly. In the form of the French tale in verse one will find neither perfection, nor variety: versification is monotonous, with its octosyllabic worms, laid out by two (or had the simplest manner): rhymes punts and often incorrect, the style tightens towards the negligence even the coarseness; what characterizes the account it is the concision, the speed, the dryness, and the absence of very picturesque. To give to the French tale in verse a certain literary dignity one finds only the speed in the action and the promptness of the dialogs.

The entire character of the French tale in verse is marked clearly by the naturalism which is found in the choice of the subjects, a great part being borrowed from daily reality of the lower middle class, and which it represents without the least will to idealize it without the least desire to embellish the facts. It is not there that beautiful descriptions of nature or treasures of imagination will be sought: here the essential components are the satire and morals.

The first remains here in a rudimentary form: joke or derision, it is conditioned only very seldom by an intention conscious of the author of making fun of such or such aspect of the life, on the other hand the second plays a rather important part in the French tale in verse and it is almost each account which ends in a morals; it does not present, however, a close relationship with the account, of it is not the goal, can be lacking without carrying besides damage about the account, and often even comes from there to contradict it. Morals arrives even at a certain immorality (which one thinks of La Housse partie).

The French tale in verse often push the coarseness until cynicism and with the obscenity, up to the point to embarrass us. In their great majority the subjects are reduced to represent adventures in love at women with the middle-class or rural world with country priests or monks gyrovagues. Most of the time it is the husband who is the turkey of the joke but it happens that it is the priest, for which he is avenged. One does not scorn to describe us tricks aiming at getting such or such good, even at robbers (Trois Larrons), or noblement with Le Vilain which conquist paradise by plaid.

Pass in front of us, represented generally in a comic way, representatives of the various social classes, generally the priests, then the unpleasant ones and the middle-class men, less come from the world of the knights and the powerful ones. Some come from there to put in scene crowned, even the apostles and God himself, without these characters, treated on a familiar and comic mode, being entitled to a special respect (Saint Pierre and Jongleur, Les Four Wishes saint Martin etc)

Neither by the form, nor by the bottom one can thus arrange the French tale in verse among the true works of art, or true literary works. Their authors besides did not prick themselves of literature: their only goal was to draw the attention of the public little cultivated, but at the same time most, by bringing it to a loud laugh, salutary at the bottom since it gave him the force to forget, at least a moment, sorrows and the sufferings.

The almost complete absence of artistic value thus does not remove with this aspect of the literature its immense importance in the history since in him, perhaps for the first time in Europe of the Middle Ages, it is a new spirit, almost modern which emerges. It is already the laughter, it is the love of life which replaces medieval sadness and the moroseness medieval.

The laic spirit, of which they are penetrated brings back the interest towards the real-world, the daily world, immense progress compared to the medieval ideal of asceticism. Even if the spirit appears only in its lower demonstration, the trick, it is a considerable progress in one time which did not attach any importance to him and the possibility denied to him of boring the secrecies of nature.

On another side, vis-a-vis the coarse power of the money one proclaims for the first time the principle that it is the trick, that it is the spirit which constitutes true forces it (miex made the engien that does not make force). Several authors finally play the part of defenders of unpleasant oppressed against their oppressors - knights, members of the clergy and civils servant royal, taking advantage of the rights of the human person and by condemning the prejudices of caste (Constant of Hamel).

These characters make authors of French tale in verse. Beside the Roman of Rose of Jean de Meung and Romance of Renart , precursors of the Rebirth. Behind hatred against the woman and her influence, very visible in several French tale in verse, it is necessary to see the influence of the sermons of the church. Certain French tale in verse, however, like Le squirrel fur palefroi of Huon the King and La Stock Exchange full with sens of Jean the Welshman, present vigorously of the woman against those which criticize it. Perhaps one can explain this attitude by the relations which these authors with the knighthood and her worship of the woman had.

The subjects of several French tale in verse inspired thereafter Boccace and its Décaméron, which could introduce art into the exposure and elegance in the style. The French tale in verse owed influence the Fountain in its Contes and Balzac in its Contes drôlatiques. The Unpleasant French tale in verse Le mire, provided to Molière the subject Médecin in spite of lui.

Examples of French tale in verse

the Priest who eats blackberries
the Old woman who oint the palm of the knight
Estula
the Partridges
the Unpleasant one Reflects (text available on Wikisource)
the Ladykiller Notre-Dame (being with the limit of the pious tales and of the French tale in verse)
the Cover left
the Three Blind men Compiegne
the Knight which made speak the idiots
Merlin Merlot
the Angel and the Hermit
the Knight with the barizel , that some refuse to arrange among the French tale in verse .
the Dream of the vits
the Young lady who could not hear of foutre
Brunain the cow with the priest , of Jean Bodel (text available on Wikisource)
De Gombert and the deus clers , of Jean Bodel
Three Uneven
the priest who have a mother in spite of him
Prudhomme which saved its accomplice

External bonds

For a thorough study: Analyzes like the French tale in verse

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