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VIRELAY

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 111 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VIRELAY , the See also:

title applied to more than one fixed See also:form of See also:verse, from the See also:French virer, to turn or veer. The See also:history and exact See also:character of the virelay are more obscure than those of any other of the old French forms. It is possible that it is connected with the Provencal ley. Historians of See also:poetry have agreed in stating that it is a modification of the See also:medieval lai, but it is curious that no example of the lai is forthcoming, except the following, which was first printed by the Pere Mourgues in his Trails de la Poesie : " Sur 1'appui du Monde Que faut-il qu'on fonde D'espoir? See also:Cette mer profonde Et debris feconde Fait voir Calme au matin 1'onde Et See also:forage y gronde Le Soir." But this appears to be, not a See also:complete poem, but a fragment of a virelay, which proceeds by shifting or " veering " the two rhymes to an extent limited only by the poet's ingenuity. This is the Old Virelay (virelai ancien), of which examples have been rare in See also:recent literature. There is, however, a New Virelay (virelai nouveau), the newness of which is merely relative, since it was used by Alain See also:Chartier in the 15th See also:century. In French the old and popular verses beginning " Adieu See also:vous dy triste See also:Lyre, C'est trop appreter a rire,"form a perfect example of the New Virelay, and in See also:English we have at least one admirable specimen in Mr See also:Austin See also:Dobson's " See also:July " - " See also:Good-bye to the See also:Town! good-bye! Hurrah! for the See also:sea and the See also:sky! " The New Virelay is entirely written on two rhymes, and begins with two lines which are destined to form recurrent refrains throughout the whole course of the poem, and, reversed in See also:order, to See also:close it with a See also:couplet. The virelay is a vaguer and less vertebrate form of verse than the See also:sonnet, the ballad or the See also:villanelle, and is of less importance than these in the history of See also:prosody. (E.

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