Repetition and Variation in the Thirteenth-Century Refrain

Abstract

Is there an answer to the question ‘what is a refrain?’ Traditionally, scholars of thirteenth-century French song begin their reply by noting that a refrain is the characteristic formal feature of a rondeau, that is, an element which is repeated, usually with a separate half-repetition, in alternation with a strophic ‘respond’: Aaliz main se leva, bon jor ait qui mon cuer a! Biau se vesti et para, desoz l'aunoi. Bon jor ait qui mon cuer a n'est pas o mot. Moreover, most modern attempts to define refrains have explicitly begun by collecting rondeaux. But since only a small proportion of refrains occurs in rondeaux (in van den Boogaard's bibliography approximately one tenth), it is clearly not a comprehensive definition.

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