Types of Poem Forms - French Blason Poems

There is a certain type of French fixed poem form that sparks the questioning mind with all kinds of mind tickling twists and curves – the French Blason Poem (also known as Blasons anatomiques’; Renaissance Blasons; or Blasons du corps féminin). In my curious mind, any poem that has the ability to make you probe such mental puzzles as:

• Can a man ever describe a woman?
• Can a man really describe a woman without revealing the core picture of himself?
• Can a woman ever describe another woman?
• Can a woman really describe another woman without there being a personal agenda?

-- is worthy of serious contemplation. These subjects are but a few of the mind curves that a well-written Blason poem has to offer the reader and the poetically minded.

Originally the word “blason” referred to descriptions of coats of arms or heraldry. Some say that this was a French invention, others credit the word blason with a Dutch origin. Long before there were Blason poems that were picture poem paintings of women, there were (beginning in the 12th century) blasons des armes. Blasons des armes were poetic imageries of both factual people, along with other blasons des armes that depicted imagined or mythical people (think King Arthur).

Taking the word Blason a step further, blasons evolved into the more modern word of “emblazon” meaning to adorn with heraldic markings. Still much later:

• blason
• blasonner
• blassoneur

-- were all French terms during the 16^th century made popular by poets who followed Clement Marot’s examples of writing poems that singled out a woman’s different parts of her body and compared them to metaphors of nature. Sometimes these blasons were favorable and other times they were complaints. French blason poems are often seen as a rejection of Petrarchan love.

Regardless, Blason poems were popular throughout the Middle Ages and this type of love poem gained a lot of popularity and was familiar with many poets over generations in several European countries -- the most famous one being often quoted being William Shakespeare’s Sonnet #130, a tongue-in cheek love poem.

It should be noted that the historical basis for this poem form really had been in existence since Biblical times. Certainly, Song of Songs (or Solomon), was a set of blasons long before the word blason existed.

The fixed French forms of the Blason are murky. Sometimes they follow sonnet formats or even blank verse. Other times the Blason is octosyllabic or even decasyllabic verse. Formats are really up to the taste of the poet writing them. However, the general older Blason writing rules are:

• Entirely make up of descriptions of different womanly attributes with associated metaphors
• Have a very pointed conclusion (not always complimentary)
• Be sometimes 8 syllables long
• Be sometimes 10 syllables long
• Be sometimes more like free verse in format
• Be sometimes more like a sonnet in format
• Revolve around the most important element which is that the poem must clearly paint a visual picture
• Keep in mind the most popular topic was the physical characteristics of women (often picking apart physical feature-by-feature)
• Usually short, highly descriptive, focused on a single physical feature
• There is no set rhyme scheme for Blason poems but most feature a 1,2,1,2 type of rhyming

Note: The older Blason poetic fixed form has very few fans among feminist poets and scholars. It is sometimes viewed as an insult to femininity, often considered violent and outdated (or at best a historical note about a time when women were 2^nd class citizens). Other Blason poems went in the opposite direction in terms of over valuing women for how they looked on the outside and ignoring that beauty is not only a youthful short-lived prospect but also flawed.

I'm not sure that there is a place for modern or new rules for writing French Blason poems in the poetry of today. Maybe that's just a woman's perspective. Even describing another woman I have no desire to pen a poem, if it means unfavorably depicting someone of my own gender or another gender. Still in real life we do view others from our own agendas, good, bad, or indifferent.

Don't think that writing a French Blason poem is easy to do, since there are so few rules. Both the rhyme scheme and the metaphor must be in agreement and making use of the trigger words for any metaphor adds another layer to the complexity of such poems.

• Clément Marot -- Blason du laid tétin
• Thomas Campion --There is a Garden In Her Face
• Guillaume Coquillart -- Blason des armes et des dames of 1484
• Maurice Scève -- Blason du sourcil
• Edmund Spenser -- Sonnet 64 (Amoretti)
• Robert Herrick -- On the Nipples of Julia's Breast
• Andrew Marvell -- To His Coy Mistress
• Aphra Behn -- The Disappointment