What is the VIA NOTEBOOK - [with EXAMPLES and EXERCISES solved]

The study of the metrics of a poem - that is, its structure, its rhythm, the characteristics of its verses, syllables and stanzas - it helps us to understand better the composition of this, and even to recognize characteristics of certain periods, literary currents, or authors.

In this lesson from a TEACHER, we will learn what is the frame via with examples to recognize this metric structure, and to know in what types of poetry we can find it. Do our exercises so you don't miss a single one!

The sash it's a kind of stanza formed by 4 Alexandrian verses (that is, 14 syllables), each divided into two hemistichs of seven syllables by a caesura or pause (7 - caesura - 7). The rhyme of the verses is consonant and uniform (YYYY). We can also find it under the name of "monorrimous tetrastrophe".

The separation of the Alexandrine into two heptasyllabic hemistichs makes the synalepha between the two not possible, that is, the union in a single syllable of the vowel at the end of a hemistich with the vowel at the beginning of the following. As we have mentioned, a caesura to divide them.

Now that we know how to recognize this type of stanza by its characteristics, it is interesting to learn in what kind of poetry and in what period the frame was used.

The frame via was the metric composition par excellence of the Mester of clergy, mainly in the 13th and 14th centuries.

The Mester of Clergy

The Mester of clergy, with him minstrel mester and the mester of courtesy, was one of the three main types or mesteres of literature in the Middle Ages, classified according to the three social classes: the plebs, the nobility, and the clergy. The clergyman thus called the medieval literature written by clergymen and scholars of the ecclesiastical sphere.

The clear and fixed metric structure of the frame was used to oppose and differentiate itself from the poetry sung by the minstrels, which used to have an irregular meter of assonance rhyme.

In Spanish literature, the frame via is used for the first time in the Book of Alexandre, a work dating from the first third of the 13th century, and which tells the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. We find the name "cuaderna via" for the first time also in the second stanza of the same Book of Alexandre:

Mester is beautiful, it is not from joglaría (7 + 7 A)

Mester is sinless, ca is clergy (7 + 7 A)

fable course rhymed by the quaderna via (7 + 7 A)

to counted syllables, which is great mastery. (7 + 7 A)

As we can see in the example above, the metric scheme and the regularity of the verses in the via frame is considered "sinless", and therefore so much superior to the popular poetry of the minstrels (although this was not completely popular, since its authors enjoyed an education in letters). The clergyman was praised as a cult style fruit of ecclesiastical formation, and the name "cuaderna via" comes precisely from the quadrivium, the four arts that made up medieval teaching.

During the thirteenth century, the frame via is used regularly by the authors representing the mester de clerecía, such as Gonzalo de Berceo in his works Miracles of Our Lady or Life of San Millán:

V: The poor charitable

He was a poor man who lived by reason,

I did not see other rendas, no other furtions

he was when he lavrava, this few seasons:

I had very few pepïones on the elevation of him.

For winning the glorious one that he loves so much,

I split him with the poor all that he earned;

in this I contended and in this punnava,

for seeing the grace of him the obliteration of him.

When I'm poor, this world to pass through,

very tasty fablóli, I wanted to spread it out,

Everyone from the site heard the word.

«You much cobdiciest our company,

sopist to earn good mastery,

ca split your souls, diziés 'Ave Maria',

why you faziés everything I understood well.

Know that your thing is all well finished,

This is where we are the main journey;

the 'Ite missa est', tells that it is sung,

Coming is the time to turn on the soldier.

I'm here come to pick you up with me,

to the regno of my Fijo who is well your friend,

where the angels of good wheat are fed;

the Holy Virtutes plazerlis be with you. "

When I hear the glorious sermon finished,

she forsaken the soul to the blissful body,

imprisoned by angels, a monstrous convent,

they raised her to Heaven, God be praised!

The omnes who raise the voice before hearing,

so aina saw the promise fulfilled;

to the glorious Mother that she is so restrained,

everyone gives thanks, she wants her departure.

What such a thing would you be ill-fated

if Sancta María was not very paid,

If I don't do it anymore, I will be disproportionate,

Whoever is part of it is very badly deceived.

Even later, we want to prod:

such a reason as this is not to be cut,

these are the trees we must folgar,

in whose shade the birds usually organize.

Miracles of Our Lady, Gonzalo de Berceo.

Other well-known works from the 13th century that use the frame via are the Book of Apollonius, the Poem by Fernán González, Y Punishments and examples of Cato.

In the name of God and of Saint Mary,

if they guided me to study I would like,

compose a romance of new mastery

of the good King Apollonius and his courtesy.

(Fragment of Book of Apollonius, middle of S. XIII)

Many coitas passed our ancestors,

many bad scares, many bad flavors,

suffer cold and fanbre and many bitternesses:

these viçios d'agora estonz were pains.

(Fragment of Poem by Fernán González)

However, especially from the fourteenth century, the use of the via frame becomes more imperfect and irregular, with synalephs, variations in the number of syllables, assonance rhymes, etc. An example of this evolution is found in the Good Love Book, of the Archpriest of Hita.

To assess whether you have understood this lesson well, in a Teacher we are going to leave you some exercises in the frame that will help you put yourself to the test.

Statement) 1. Which of the following stanzas not is it written on the track? Keep in mind that the pronunciation differences of the time may make some of the verses not have a perfect syllabic parity.

To fincar without shame, that he was not crawled,

Faced a lawsuit and a closed argument:

to the one who agrees that gela would give of degree,

whoever did not do so would be beheaded.

Every man who wants to be well taught,

in this my romance put your care,

that if he well will keep what is commanded here

it can be very blissful and very adventurous.

This precious party that we have told

in general council was later confirmed:

It is for many churches date and celebrated,

During the whole century, it will not be obliterated.

I chase a way that doesn't find my style

thought button that seeks to be the rose;

it is announced with a kiss that rests on my lips

the impossible embrace of the Venus de Milo.

Statement 2) Write the metric scheme for the following stanza. Is it cuaderna via?

But King Alexandre knew a custom:

that omne can never win by much manhood,

that the few who have firmness are worth more

and I see them by nature of leather strength.

Solutions:

1. The next stanza is not written in frame via. They are Alexandrian verses, but their rhyme is not uniform (monorrima): 14A, 14B, 14B, 14A. It is a fragment of a sonnet by Rubén Darío:

I chase a way that doesn't find my style

thought button that seeks to be the rose;

it is announced with a kiss that rests on my lips

the impossible embrace of the Venus de Milo.

2. The metric scheme is: 14 (7 + 7) A, 14 (7 + 7) A, 14 (7 + 7) A, 14 (7 + 7) A