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UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles a Statistical Analysis of The UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles A Statistical Analysis of the Metrics of the Classic French Decasyllable and Classic Alexandrine A dissertation submitted in partial satistfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Linguistics and Literature by Henry Parkman Biggs 1996 TABLE OF CONTENTS 0. Introduction....................................................................................................1 Chapter 1 Metrics ..........................................................................................................3 1.2 French Metrics...............................................................................................8 1.2.2 The Classic French Decasyllable...................................................................10 1.2.2.1 Syllable Count................................................................................................10 1.2.2.2 Stress Requirements.......................................................................................12 1.2.2.3 The Caesura...................................................................................................14 1.2.2.4 Proposed Bans on Hemistich-Penultimate Stress ..........................................16 1.2.3 The Classic French Alexandrine....................................................................18 1.2.4 Generative French Metrics.............................................................................21 1.3 French Prosodic Phonology...........................................................................23 1.4 Proposed System of Rules .............................................................................28 1.5 Methods of Metrical Analysis........................................................................40 1.6 Fragestellung..................................................................................................44 Chapter 2: Method ..........................................................................................................46 2.1 Data Corpus...................................................................................................46 2.1.1 Sceve (1501-1560).........................................................................................47 2.1.2 Du Bellay (1522-1560) ..................................................................................47 2.1.4 Ronsard (1524-1585).....................................................................................49 2.1.5 Racine (1639-1699).......................................................................................49 2.3 Break Profiles................................................................................................50 2.4 Verse Model...................................................................................................58 2.4.1 Importance of Prose models...........................................................................61 2.5 Statistics Gathered.........................................................................................72 2.6 Statistical Testing...........................................................................................73 Chapter 3: Results ..........................................................................................................77 3.1 Scève..............................................................................................................77 3.1.1 Stress Profiles Scève Poetry vs. His Own Prose..........................................................................77 3.1.2 Break Profile Scève Poetry vs. Own Prose Model.....................................................................84 3.1.3 Stress Profiles Scève Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals...................................................................86 3.1.4 Break Profiles Scève Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals...................................................................94 3.2 Ronsard ..........................................................................................................96 3.2.1 Stress Profiles Ronsard Poetry vs. Own Prose Model 3.2.2 Break Profiles Ronsard Poetry vs. Own Prose Model .................................................................100 3.2.3 Stress Profiles Ronsard Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals...............................................................102 3.2.4 Break Profiles Ronsard Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals...............................................................107 3.3 Du Bellay.......................................................................................................108 3.3.1 Stress Profiles Du Bellay Poetry vs. His Own Prose...................................................................109 3.3.2 Break Profiles Du Bellay Poetry vs His Own Prose Model ........................................................113 3.3.3 Stress Profiles Du Bellay Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals............................................................114 3.3.4 Break Profiles Du Bellay Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals............................................................118 3.4 Tyard..............................................................................................................120 3.4.1 Stress Profiles Tyard Poetry vs. His Own Prose..........................................................................120 3.4.2 Break Profiles Tyard Poetry vs. Tyard Prose ..............................................................................125 3.4.3 Stress Profiles Tyard Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals...................................................................127 3.4.4 Break Profiles Tyard Poetry vs. Prose Model Totals...................................................................131 3.5 Totals Poetry vs. Totals Prose 3.5.1 Stress Profiles Poetry Totals vs. Prose Model Totals ..................................................................132 3.5.2 Break Profiles Poetry Totals vs. Prose Model Totals ..................................................................136 3.6 Racine ............................................................................................................138 3.6.1 First Hemistich...............................................................................................138 3.6.2 Break Profiles Racine First Hemistich.........................................................................................142 3.7 Racine Second Hemistich ................................................................................................144 3.7.1 Stress Profiles Racine Second Hemistich ....................................................................................144 3.7.2 Break Profiles Racine Second Hemistich ....................................................................................149 Chapter 4: Interpretations.............................................................................................150 4.1 Stress Clashes................................................................................................150 4.2 Lapses ............................................................................................................151 4.3 Upbeats ..........................................................................................................152 Chapter 5: Conclusion....................................................................................................163 A Statistical Analysis of the Metrics of the Classic French Decasyllable and Classic Alexandrine 0. Introduction In traditional analyses of the Classic French decasyllable, the line is assumed to obey only a very small number of constraints. This dissertation is an effort to see if there might be a more elaborate pattern underlying these lines. The premise here is that such a pattern may be discoverable if one examines statistical rather than categorical patterns in the verse. There will be four major parts. In the first section, I will discuss the distinction between metrics and generative metrics, reviewing traditional rules of certain meters as well as discussing the additions in generative metrics of Kiparsky (1975), (1977), Verluyten (1989) and Bowers (1982) to the traditional analyses of the line. I will also discuss the particular difficulties to be encountered when analyzing the placement of stress in French and propose a system of rules to be applied to help in objectively assessing stress in French poetry. I will show that this system proves reliable when compared against the assessments of other metricists and also when compared against the speech patterns of poetry readers. In the second part, I will explain the statistical approach that I have taken in this dissertation, detail the works the data was collected from, explain how I collected the data and explain the use of statistical tests to determine the significance of the data that have been collected. In the third section, I will discuss the results in detail, pointing out the idiosyncracies of each poet, as well as the idiosyncracies between poets In the fourth section, I will discuss the underlying patterns and preferences that are present to some degree in the filter of each poet as he writes his verse. I will then posit a theory as to the underlying nature of the Classic French decasyllable and give a preliminary impression of what the initial statistics for Classic French Alexandrine indicate. 2 Chapter One: Background 1. Metrics Generative metrics (Halle & Keyser (1966), Kiparsky (1977), Piera (1980), Hayes (1983) and other work) addresses the question of how rhythmic
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