View source for Envoi

{{Short description|Short stanza at the end of a poem}}
{{other uses}}
'''Envoi''' or '''envoy''' in poetry is used to describe:

* A short [[stanza]] at the end of a [[poem]] such as a [[ballad]], used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/envoi|title=Envoi (or Envoy)|date=2019-10-31|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6VjoCQAAQBAJ&q=envoi+poetry&pg=PA334|title=Poetry Kaleidoscope|last=Sfetcu|first=Nicolae|publisher=Lulu.com|isbn=9781312780200|language=en}}</ref>
* A dedicatory poem about sending the book out to readers, a postscript.<ref name=":1">"envoy, n.1". OED Online. September 2019. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/view/Entry/63102?redirectedFrom=envoi  (accessed October 31, 2019).</ref>
* Any poem of farewell, including a farewell to life.

The word ''envoy'' or ''l'envoy'' comes from the Old French, where it means '[the] sending forth'.<ref name=":1" /> Originally it was a stanza at the end of a longer poem, which included a dedication to a patron or individual, similar to a [[Tornada (Occitan literary term)|tornada]]. More recent examples are dedicatory poems as part of a collection, or an individual poem about farewell or moving on. Envoi is both a type of poem, and is often used as a title.

==Form==
The envoi is relatively fluid in form. In ballades and  [[chant royal]], envois have fewer lines than the main stanzas of the poem. They may also repeat the rhyme words or sounds used in the main body of the poem, or even whole lines.<ref name=":0" /> The envoi can also be a [[Lyric poetry|short lyric poem]] of any form, usually placed at the end of a poetry collection.

==Origins in medieval France==
The envoi first appears in medieval French, in the songs of the [[trouvère]]s and [[troubadour]]s.<ref name=":0" /> It developed as an address to the poet's beloved or to a friend or patron, and typically expresses the poet's hope that the poem may bring them some benefit (the beloved's favours, increased patronage, and so on).

In the 14th century, the two main forms used in the new literary [[French poetry]] were the [[ballade (forme fixe)|ballade]], which employed a [[refrain]] at first but evolved to include an envoi, and the ''chant royal'', which used an envoi from the beginning.<ref name=":0" /> The main exponents of these forms were [[Christine de Pizan]] and [[Charles, duc d'Orléans|Charles d'Orléans]]. In the work of these poets, the nature of the envoi changed significantly. They occasionally retained the invocation of the Prince or abstract entities such as Hope or Love as a [[cryptonym]] for an authority figure the [[protagonist]]s(s) of the poem could appeal to, or, in the some poems by d'Orléans, to address actual royalty. However, more frequently in the works of these poets the envoi served as a commentary on the preceding stanzas, either reinforcing or ironically undercutting the message of the poem. [[Jean Froissart]], in his adaptation of the troubadour ''[[pastourelle]]'' [[genre]] to the ''chant royal'' form, also employed the envoi. His use, however, is less innovative than that of de Pizan or d'Orléans. Froissart's envois are invariably addressed to the Prince and are used to summarise the content of the preceding stanzas. Since the 14th century, the envoi has been seen as an integral part of a number of traditional poetic forms, including, in addition to the ballade and ''chant royal'', the ''[[virelai nouveau]]'' and the [[sestina]].

==Later developments==
In English, poems with envoi have been written by poets as diverse as [[Henry Austin Dobson|Austin Dobson]], [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]] and [[Ezra Pound]]. [[G. K. Chesterton]] and [[Hilaire Belloc]] went through a period of adding envois to their humorous and satirical poems.

Using an envoi as a 'sending-out' poem was already quite typical by the eighteenth and nineteenth century, with poets like [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow|Henry Longfellow]] using the form in the 1890s, and [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] writing his 'L'envoi' which he addressed to the reader.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_J._W._von_Goethe/Volume_9/L'Envoi|title=The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 9|last=Goethe|first=Johann Wolfgang von}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bartleby.com/356/17.html|title=L'Envoi. Earlier Poems. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1893. Complete Poetical Works|website=www.bartleby.com|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref> Ezra Pound's 'Envoi' to his longer poem [[Hugh Selwyn Mauberley]] (1920) begins "Go, dumb-born book",<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44914/envoi-56d2243243e40|title=Envoi by Ezra Pound|date=2019-10-31|website=Poetry Foundation|language=en|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref> and thus explicitly gives the 'Envoi' title to the long-standing genre of writing a farewell poem addressed to the book of poems itself, previously used for example by [[Edmund Spenser]] in [[The Shepheardes Calender|''The'' ''Shepheardes Calender'']] (1579)<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/sfront.html|title=The Shepheardes Calender -- Frontmatter|website=www.luminarium.org|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref> or [[Anne Bradstreet]] in 'The Author to Her Book' (1650s).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Author_to_Her_Book|title=The Author To Her Book|last=Bradstreet|first=Anne}}</ref> Later writers such as [[William Morris Meredith Jr.|William Meredith]] and [[Meg Bateman]] have also written envois of this kind.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://poets.org/poem/envoi|title=Envoi by William Meredith - Poems {{!}} Academy of American Poets|last=Poets|first=Academy of American|website=poets.org|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/envoi-2464?showmodal=en|title=Envoi (Meg Bateman)|website=www.lyrikline.org|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref>

The envoi is also often written as a postscript or farewell from the poet as they face death, even if that death might be some distance away. Poets who have written envois in this style include [[Rudyard Kipling]],<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Seven_Seas/L'Envoi|title=The Seven Seas|last=Kipling|first=Rudyard}}</ref> [[Willa Cather]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://poets.org/poem/lenvoi|title=L'Envoi by Willa Cather - Poems {{!}} Academy of American Poets|last=Poets|first=Academy of American|website=poets.org|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref> [[James McAuley]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/mcauley-james/poems/envoi-0151006|title=Australian Poetry Library|website=www.poetrylibrary.edu.au|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref> the suffragist [[Emily Davison]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://emilydavisonproject.org/2018/09/30/lenvoi-a-poem-by-emily-wilding-davison/|title=L'Envoi, a poem by Emily Wilding Davison – Emily Davison Memorial Project|last=EDMP|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref> and [[Llewelyn Wyn Griffith|Wyn Griffith]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://allpoetry.com/poem/8620827-Envoi-by-Wyn-Griffith|title=Envoi by Wyn Griffith|last=Envoi|website=allpoetry.com|access-date=2019-11-01}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Tornada (Occitan literary term)]]

==External links==
*[https://poetry.harvard.edu/troubadours Troubadour poetry]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20080511161744/http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/christin.html#anchor384566 Christine de Pizan life and works]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20040427075013/http://www174.pair.com/mja/cdo.html Charles d'Orléans links]

== References ==
<references /><br />

[[Category:Stanzaic form]]
[[Category:French poetry]]