Free Verse

Free verse or Vers libre was developed by the symbolist poets as a form of verse liberated from the traditional formal requirements of French poetry, such as meter and rhyme. The symbolists felt the formal qualities of a poem should emerge from its content, rather than being imposed upon it by the rules of tradition. Free verse poetry thus tends to be structured according to the rhythms of everyday speech. French symbolist poets Jules Laforgue (1860-1887) and Gustave Kahn (1859-1936) were the first to develop free verse, which they began to use in the 1880s. Because of the influence of symbolist poetry, free verse came to characterize modern poetry in the twentieth century. Early English-language poets who used free verse include T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.

Musicality of Language

Symbolist writers were particularly interested in bringing out the musical qualities of language. They developed works of...