A laisse is a type of
stanza
In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
, of varying length, found in
medieval French literature
Medieval French literature is, for the purpose of this article, Medieval literature written in Oïl languages (particularly Old French and early Middle French) during the period from the eleventh century to the end of the fifteenth century.
The ...
, specifically medieval French
epic poetry
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
(the ''
chanson de geste''), such as ''
The Song of Roland
''The Song of Roland'' (french: La Chanson de Roland) is an 11th-century ''chanson de geste'' based on the Frankish military leader Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 AD, during the reign of the Carolingian king Charlemagne. It is t ...
''. In early works, each laisse was made up of (mono)
assonanced verses, although the appearance of (mono)
rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
d laisses was increasingly common in later poems.
[Princeton.] Within a poem, the length of each separate laisse is variable (whereas the metric length of the verses is invariable, each verse having the same syllable length, typically
decasyllable
Decasyllable (Italian: ''decasillabo'', French: ''décasyllabe'', Serbian: ''десетерац'', ''deseterac'') is a poetic meter of ten syllables used in poetic traditions of syllabic verse. In languages with a stress accent (accentual ve ...
s or, occasionally,
alexandrines.
The laisse is characterized by stereotyped phrases and formulas and frequently repeated themes and motifs,
[Jean Rychner, 1955. Quoted in Brault, I. Introduction, p. 8.] including repetitions of material from one laisse to another. Such repetitions and formulaic structures are common of
orality and
oral-formulaic composition Oral-formulaic composition is a theory that originated in the scholarly study of epic poetry and developed in the second quarter of the twentieth century. It seeks to explain two related issues:
# the process by which oral poets improvise poetry
# ...
. When
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
poets repeated content (with different wording or assonance or rhyme) from one laisse to another, such "similar" laisses are called ''laisses similaires'' in
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
.
References
* ''Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics''. Alex Preminger, ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965, 1974. "Laisse", p. 436.
* Gerard J. Brault, ed. ''The Song of Roland: An Analytical Edition''. (Pennsylvania State University, 1978).
Stanzaic form
Epic poetry
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