123 THE ASCENT OF BALLADS

consequences of the ballad revival for nineteenth-century literature
are less important than in Germany or England. There is, of
course, the exuberant Hugo. He has his Odes et Ballades, of which
the fifteen poems under the latter title are neither ballades nor
ballads, but rhetorical lyrico-narratives in Victor Hugo's own
manner. La Chasse die Bitrgrave, a tale cast in the mould of the
Renaissance echo songs, even inspired some hesitation in its author,
as being perhaps 'somewhat too Gothic in form'. Les Orientates
(1829) contains matter more to our purpose. Dedicated to the
cause of Greek independence, these pieces mention Botzaris and
other heroes whose feats are celebrated in 'tragoudia', and, after
Byron, he retails the Mazeppa legend, for which there are popular
parallels in the Ukraine. The direct imitation of ballads, however,
is limited to La Bataille perdue and Romance mauresque, both of
them offerings on the altar of his peculiar devotion to Spain. The
former is the ballad on King Roderick's defeat, made more
rhetorical; the latter is a flaccid version of the dramatic ballad of
Mudarra's vengeance. The savagely intense Castilian song has
been converted into an arabesque, and the local colour is so thickly
splashed that it sometimes cries out. At least to a Spanish ear it
must seem strange that Mudarra, 'who commands a frigate of the
Moorish king Aliatar', should have been chased from Alba to
Zaxnora in the central Meseta. The devotion of Gerard de Nerval
to the 'chanson populaire' was both more national and more
natural than this. But in France, as in England, there is one sur-
prise. Leconte de Lisle1 exercised his Parnassian genius for pure
form on the matter of the Danish Elveskud, the Swedish Sorrow's
Might (Christine) and half a dozen Castilian 'romances'.2 From
these *rudes poesies', as Vianey dubs them, the Parnassian could
learn little but his own doctrine of objectivity; apart from that,
their contents were mere raw materials, on a par with Greek
myths and Vedic hymns. They gave him, however, the vigour
and initiative which throbs beneath the classic perfection of his
polish.

In Spain the 'romance' flourished among poets once its prestige
abroad was sufficiently understood. It produced an offshoot, the

1 J. Vianey, Les Sources de Leconte de Lisle> Montpellier, 1907.

2 From Damas Hinard, Romancero general, Paris, 1844. The poems are La
TSte du Comte, based on the Cid's vengeance for his father, Ximena, U Accident
de Don Inigo (also a Cid ballad), Les Inquietudes de Don Simuel, La Romance de
Don Fadrique, and La Romance de Dona Blanca.