Musset’s poetry generally falls into four main divisions: the “contes en vers,” the “chansons” and shorter poems, the Nuits cycle, and the verse whose principal subject is poetry itself, the “poèmes à thèse.” It is primarily these groups, and the first three especially, which are examined in this attempt to describe and explain the evolution of his verse. Although a consideration of the place of Musset’s biography within his verse becomes unavoidable after a certain point, emphasis is plac...