The French poetry of some five centuries is here surveyed in a series of studies of the work and personality of individual poets from Villon to the present day. Each chapter is primarily concerned with establishing the literary identity of the poet or poets with whom it deals: the work of each is outlined and related to the historical and biographical circumstances in which it was written; and its characteristics are then examined critically in terms relevant to the modern reader. Comparisons are made between different poets, and more general topics such as the concepts of classic and baroque are discussed.

This book, first published in 1956, had become a standard introductory work for students of French poetry and general readers alike. For this revised edition, originally published in 1973, new chapters have been added on irregular seventeenth-century poets and on various modern poets whose work now enables the Surrealist movement to be seen in clearer perspective. The bibliography has been revised extensively.