SOURCE: “From Apollinaire's Knee,” in American Scholar, Vol. 61, No. 1, Winter, 1992, pp. 138, 140-41.

In the following review, Fowlie offers a favorable evaluation of An Essay on French Verse.

No one title would be adequate to describe the contents of this small book [An Essay on French Verse]. Its author first carefully explains the rules of French prosody, and then he explores the changes it underwent in each century. The ten-syllable line of La Chanson de Roland in the eleventh century was recast into the twelve-syllable line, the alexandrine, in the thirteenth century. These two major types of lines remain the favorites in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Professor Barzun contrasts the classical alexandrine line with the iambic pentameter used by Shakespeare. The history of France and the political systems have affected the lives of the poets and influenced the development of French poetry from century to century. All of...