The most elaborate of the medieval French fixed forms, an extended ballade of five eleven-line stanzas plus a five-line envoi, all sharing one refrain line and built on only five rhyme sounds carried through sixty lines, traditionally reserved for weighty or ceremonial subjects.
Facts
Place of OriginFrance, 14th-15th century, a grander extension of the ballade form. 1 StructureFive stanzas of eleven lines each, rhymed ababccddedE, plus a five-line envoi rhymed ddedE, all stanzas and the envoi ending on the same refrain line E. 1 Notable ExampleChants royaux composed for the puys, the literary guild competitions of northern France. 1 Connections
Form Of Genre
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Influenced By
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Sources
1. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
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