Reading the Rhythm: The Poetics of French Free Verse 1910-1930

We are still a long way from knowing how to read the rhythms of free verse, a poetry which has been largely neglected by metrical theory. Clive Scott's readable and scholarly study indicates the strategies of reading needed in order to do justice to free verse's rhythmic versatility. The core of the book is an analysis of key twentieth-century poets and poems, including Perse's Éloges; Cendrars's Prose du Transsibérien, Dix-neuf poemes élastiques, and Documentaires; Apollinaire's Calligrammes; Supervielle's Gravitations; and Reverdy's Sources du vent. He also looks at contemporary trends in the visual arts--Cubism, Futurism, Orphism, photography--to illuminate free verse's perceptual models and discusses the theme of travel and movement.