CANZONE, kiln-tso'nft, a particular variety of lyric poetry of Provençal origin. It is found in the Italian poetry of the 13th century. At first it was quite irregular, but was confined by Petrarch to more fixed and regular forms. Hence it is called canzone Petrarchesca; it is also called canzone Toscana, because it originated in Tuscany. It is divided into several stanzas, in which the nature and disposition of the verses, which are of 11 and 7 syllables, and the place of the rhymes, are uniform. The can zone-strophe consists of two parts, the opening one being distinguished by Dante as the fronte, the closing one as the .rirtna, and these parts are connected by rhyme, it being usual to make the rhyme of the last line of the fronte identi cal with that of the first line of the sirnsa. In other respects, the canzone has great liberty. The canzone usually concludes with a stanza which is shorter than the others, and is called ripresa, congedo, comiato, signifying dismis sion or taking leave. There are different kinds of canzoni, and different names are given to the different parts. The canzone Anacreontica is divided into small stanzas, consisting of short verses, with a regular disposition of the rhymes through all the stanzas. Not only light, pleasing songs of love, gaiety and mirth, but poems on solemn and lofty subjects, and of an elevated dithyrambic strain are included under this name. The latter subjects, however, are
better adapted to the canzone Pindarica, which was first introduced in the 16th century by Luigi Alamanni, and owes its perfection chiefly to Chiabrera. It is distinguished from that of Petrarch by a bolder flight, loftier ideas, greater freedom in the choice and disposition of the verses, and by the form of the stanzas, which is borrowed from the Greek chorus. The Pindaric canzoni are divided into strophe, antistrophe and epode, and are called canzoni alla Greca. Those divisions are sometimes called ballata, contraballata and stanza : or volts, rivolta and stanza; the Greek names are the most common. There is also the canzone a' ballo, an old Italian poem, originally intended to be sung at a dance (ballo) It is called also ballata. It is not em ployed by the Italian poets later than the 16th century. In England, the canzone was intro duced at the end of the 16th century by William Drummond of Hawthornden, who has left some fine examples. In Germany, the poets of the Romantic period imitated it, especially A. W. von Schlegel.