Chaucer and His French Contemporaries
- Author / Editor
- Wimsatt, James I.
Chaucer and His French Contemporaries
- Published
- Chaucer Newsletter 11:1 (1989): 1-2.
- Description
- The "formes fixes" lyrics of Middle French, especially the ballade, are almost as influential for Chaucer's works as was the "Roman de la Rose." The "formes fixes"--ballade, rondeau, and virelay--were highly musical and connected with dancing.
- The importance of music for medieval verse, whether Chaucer's or that of the French poets, is confirmed by Dante's comments on versification in "De vulgari eloquentia." Chaucer's short lyrics are virtually all ballades, ballade-like poems or rondeaux. His later poems especially TC and PF, also use stanzaic units of the "formes fixes" ballades.
- Chaucer Subjects
- Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations.