1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Triolet
TRIOLET, one of the fixed forms of verse invented in medieval
France, and preserved in the practice of many modern literatures.
It consists of eight short lines on two rhymes, arranged
a b a a a b a b, and in French usually begins on the masculine
rhyme. The first line reappears as the fourth line, and the
seventh and eighth lines repeat the opening couplet; the first
line, therefore, is repeated three times, and hence the name.
No more typical specimen of the triolet could be found than
the following, by Jacques Ranchin (c. 1690):—
“Le premier jour du mois de, mai
Fut le plus heureux de ma vie:
Le beau dessein que je formais,
Le premier jour du mois de mai !
le vous vis et je vous aimais.
Si ce dessein vous plut, Sylvie,
Le premier jour du mois de mai
Fut le plus heureux de ma vie."
This poem was styled by Ménage “ the king of triolets.” The
great art of the triolet consists in using the refrain-line with
such naturalness and ease that it should seem inevitable,
and yet in each repetition slightly altering its meaning,
or at least its relation to the rest of the poem. The triolet
seems to have been invented in the 13th century. The earliest
example known occurs in the Cléomadés of Adenéz-le-Roi (1258–1297). The medieval triolet was usually written in lines
of ten syllables, and the lightness of touch in the modern specimens
was unknown to these perfectly serious examples. One
of the best-known is that of Froissart, “Mon cœur s'ebât
en odorant la rose.” The rules are laid down in the Art et
Science de Rhéthorique (1493) of Henry de Croi, who quotes
a triolet written in words of one syllable. According to
Sarrasin, who introduces the triolet as a mourner in his Pompe
funèbre de Voiture, it was that writer who “ remis en vogue ”
the ancient precise forms of verse, “ par ses balades, ses triolets
et ses rondeaux, qui par sa mort (1648) retournaient
dans leur ancien décri." Boileau threw scorn upon the delicate
art of these pieces, and mocked the memory of Clément
Marot because he “ tourna des triolets,” but Marmontel
recognized the neatness and charm of the form. They
continued to be written in France, but not by poets of much
pretension, until the middle of the 19th century, when there
was a great revival of their use.
The earliest triolets in English are those of a devotional
nature composed in 1651 by Patrick Carey, a Benedictine
monk at Douai, where he probably had become acquainted
with what Voiture had made a fashionable French pastime.
In modern times, the triolet was re-introduced into English
by Robert Bridges, in 1873, with his—
“When first we met, we did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master;
Of more than common friendliness
When first we met we did not guess.
Who could foretell the sore distress,
This irretrievable disaster,
When first we met?—we did not guess
That Love would prove so hard a master."
Since then the triolet has been cultivated very widely in
English, most successfully by Austin Dobson, whose " Rose
kissed me to-day,” “ I intended an Ode ” and " In the School
of Coquettes ” are masterpieces of ingenuity and easy grace.
In later French literature, triolets are innumerable; perhaps
the most graceful cycle of them is “ Les Prunes," attached
by Alphonse Daudet to his Les Armoureuses in 1858; and there
are delightful examples by Théodore de Banville. In Germany
the triolet has attracted much attention. Those which had
been written before his day were collected by Friedrich Rassmann,
in 1815 and 1817. But as early as 1795 an anthology
of triolets had been published at Halberstadt, and another
at Brunswick in 1796. Rassmann distinguished three species
of triolet, the legitimate form (which has been described
above), the loose triolet, which only approximately abides
by the rules as to number of rhymes and lines, and single strophe
poems which more or less accidentally approach the
true triolet in character. The true triolet was employed by
W. Schlegel, Hagedorn, Rückert, Platen and other romantic
poets of the early 19th century. In many languages the
triolet has come into very frequent use to give point and
brightness to a brief stroke of satire; the French newspapers
are full of examples of this. The triolet always, or at
least since medieval times, has laboured under a suspicion of
frivolity, and Rivarol, in 1788, found no more cutting thing to
say of Conjon de Bayeux than that he was “ si recherche pour
le triolet.” But in the hands of a genuine poetwho desires
to record and to repeat a mood of graceful reverie or pathetic
humour, the triolet possesses a very delicate charm.
See Friedrich Rassmann, Sammlung triolettischer Spiele (Leipzig, 1817). (E. G.)