ABSTRACT
The simplest method of disposing of Monsieur de Voltaire’s verse is to say that he was not a poet at all and then to proceed to consider some other part of his immense production. This is an impossible attitude except for a critic who is confident he knows precisely what is poetry and what is not poetry and who does not hesitate to apply his formula with rigid precision. The virtues of Voltaire’s verse are in the main the virtues of good prose ; facility, smoothness, clarity, evenness of tone, epigrammatic felicity, good sense, invention. It is deficient in imagination, passion, vivid metaphors and images, a plastic sense. La Pucelle is Voltaire’s one real poetic success outside the realms of occasional verse. There is good didactic verse in the Discours en Vers sur V Romme and the Poeme sur la Loi naturelle, but these are in essence semi-philosophical tracts, put into rhyme by an able virtuoso.
