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  • Quel avenir pour la cavalerie? Une histoire naturelle du vers français by Jacques Réda
  • Aaron Prevots
Réda, Jacques. Quel avenir pour la cavalerie? Une histoire naturelle du vers français. Buchet/Chastel, 2019. ISBN 978-2-283-03349-4. Pp. 215.

This lively, accessible study traces the historical contexts in which French verse has evolved. It focuses on the French metric line's development, variations, and effects, particularly through the lens of influential writers and their stylistic choices. Its chronological structure and coherence as a scholarly project lend it considerable transparency. It covers much ground as regards typical forms, for instance octosyllables, decasyllables, alexandrines, and free verse. The author's background—his intimate familiarity with the canon, five decades as a commentator, and experience applying techniques—makes this a standout publication. He allows himself a certain playfulness at times, yet conveys with great precision how French poetry moves us by meeting, exceeding, or sidestepping expectations in relation to the many eras in which [End Page 211] it has thrived. Equal parts enriching, astute analysis and engaged, generous exploration of a wide swath of authors, Quel avenir features exegeses that are patient and detailed. We grasp verse's vitality, adaptability, and communicative powers. Réda brings to each chapter critical flair, dynamic storytelling, cogent explanation of poetry's technical components, and distinctive awareness of how rhythm and sound propel a poem forward in order to reflect and shape human movement through the world. The blend of equitable objectivity and attunement to emotion and sensation functions well. Students of prosody will comfortably acquire skills and knowledge. Anyone wanting exposure to "œuvres emblématiques" (back cover) and those who crafted them will very much benefit too. A recurring thread is that language as a continuous sociocultural phenomenon can be an entity, a notion that Réda pursued in relation to American jazz music in his critical study L'improviste. Verse is examined as if it were an organism whose life span merited close inspection by a natural scientist. We learn to appreciate the French language as a sum of many parts that is alive to the world and endowed with consciousness, an impersonal presence that elaborates new structures at each stage of its growth (51, 77, 129). We appreciate the progress of this obstinate soul moving toward—"vers"—what cannot be measured or said (76, 83, 93). Enriching key passages discuss, for example, what makes verse beautiful at some junctures, vaudevillian at others, and eloquently experimental in recent years. Additionally, the "vibration[s]" (76) of Réda's descriptions, whether in the text itself or the assiduously nuanced footnotes, can offer enjoyment. His careful framing deepens our understanding, in introductory comments explaining verse's development and survival, passages that consider how verse is "en principe syllabique" (32), chapters—though unnumbered—that address its trajectory from the eleventh century to today, and a brief coda that further illustrates selected themes and metric idiosyncrasies. Throughout this study, empathetic acknowledgment of fellow scholars and writers accompanies the appreciation of well-known and less-known poetic works. An invaluable acquisition for libraries, Quel avenir should please any reader curious about the French language's cadences, character, important poet-practitioners, and enduring ebb and flow.

Aaron Prevots
Southwestern University (TX)
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