On the Wreckage of the Bastille of Rhymes

Abstract

Two texts by A. Rimbaud, published in 1886, but written earlier, and not poems by G. Kahn, J. Laforgue or J. Moréas, are considered the first vers libre in French. The paper shows two approaches to the analysis of free verse rhythm: the rules for reading and counting silent [Ə]; free verse is considered as a derivative of verse or prose, respectively (K. Scott and M. Murat), which proves the fundamental ambiguity of this poetic form and the importance of the reader’s perception in the process of reading as co-creation. The arguments of opponents and supporters of free verse, the so-called “free verse controversy” (“querelle du vers libre”) prove that in the imagination of writers there exists the connection between the poetic system and the social order. The paper considers the opposition proposed by the French researcher M. Murat — that of the national French vers libre and the international free verse that goes back to the American, that is to say Whitman’s model of Whitman through Valerie Larbeau’s poetry. The creative act of Larbeau, who created a heteronym — the English-language poet Barnabooth, raises the question of erasing national prosody and switching the linguistic code.