Edmund William Gosse, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 27… (1911)
“ If in England the expression vers de société carries with it more literary dignity, this is mainly due to the genius of one man. Prior’s Poems on Several Occasions, collected in 1709, presents us with some of the earliest entirely characteristic specimens of vers de société, arid with some of the best. ”
Edmund William Gosse, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 27… (1911)
“ The prince of such graceful triflers was the Abbé de Chaulieu (1639–1720) , of whom it was said that he made verses solely for the amusement of his friends, and without the smallest intention of seeing them in print. The best of his effusions have preserved a certain freshness because of the neatness with which they are turned, but it can scarcely be said that they have any pretension to be called poetry. ”
Edmund William Gosse, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 27… (1911)
“ VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ, a term for social or familiar poetry, which was originally borrowed from the French, and has now come to rank as an English expression (see Fennell, The Stamford Dictionary of Anglicised Words) . The use of the phrase as an English one is first met with at the opening of the 19th century. It is to be observed that it has come to bear a meaning which is not wholly equivalent to that of the French original. ”
