As we said at the outset, what is most striking about this poem is its
realism. The poet revels in enumerating the good things the men had to
eat at the feast of Saint Nicholas; he describes with a wealth of
vocabulary and a flood of technical terms quite bewildering every sort
of boat, and all its parts with their uses; he reproduces the talk of
the boatmen, leaving unvarnished their ignorance and superstition,
their roughness and brutality; he describes their appearance, their
long hair and large earrings; he explains the manner of guiding the
boats down the swirling, treacherous waters, amid the dangers of shoals
and hidden rocks; he describes all the cargoes, not finding it beneath
the dignity of an epic poem to tell us of the kegs of foamy beer that is
destined for the thirsty throats of the drinkers at Beaucaire; as the
boats pass Condrieu, he reproduces the gossip of the boatmen's wives; he
does not omit the explanations of Apian addressed to the Prince
concerning fogs and currents; he is often humorous, telling us of the
heavy merchants who promenade their paunches whereon the watch-charms
rattle against their snug little money carried in a belt; he describes
the passengers, tells us their various trades and destinations, is even
cynical; tells of the bourgeois, who, once away from their wives, grow
suddenly lavish with their money, and like pigs let loose in the street,
take up the whole roadway; he does not shrink from letting us know that
the men chew a cud of tobacco while they talk; he mentions the price of
goods; he puts into the mouth of Jean Roche's mother a great many
practical and material considerations as to the matter of taking a
wife, and a very wise and practical old lady she is; he treats as
"joyeusetés" the conversation of the Venetian women who inform the
Prince that in their city the noblewoman, once married, may have quite a
number of lovers without exciting any comment, the husband being rather
relieved than otherwise; he allows his boatmen to swear and call one