Examining poetry written in 30 languages (from Irish to Belorussian) and over several millennia (from classical Latin and Greek to the experiments of the contemporary avant garde), this is the first detailed history of European versification. Gasparov shows how the poetry of English, French, Russian, Greek, and other European languages has developed from a single common Indo-European source. The book's account is liberally illustrated with verse examples, both in their original languages and in translation.