No, but also, what really is free verse? If we want to know who 'invented' free verse, the first examples are some of the psalms, for example, psalm 23 by King David. Whether you consider Psalms to be poems or not is your choice, but I do, so here it is. After the Psalms, humans apparently became too intelligent to write without rhyme and rhythm. While Dante did write 'The Divine Comedy', perhaps the most important poem of all time, in free verse, it was fairly rare and obscure to write that way. Many resources claim the French literary movement, 'Vers libre' is responsible for bringing free verse to the mainstream. Is it though? As far as I know, you don't get more mainstream than Walt Whitman, and many of his writings are in free verse. Granted, he too wrote in approximately the same time period as this movement, but I still believe he wrote his poems a few years before this movement started (1886).
Did Walt Whitman invent free verse?
Did Walt Whitman invent free verse?
Did Walt Whitman invent free verse?
No, but also, what really is free verse? If we want to know who 'invented' free verse, the first examples are some of the psalms, for example, psalm 23 by King David. Whether you consider Psalms to be poems or not is your choice, but I do, so here it is. After the Psalms, humans apparently became too intelligent to write without rhyme and rhythm. While Dante did write 'The Divine Comedy', perhaps the most important poem of all time, in free verse, it was fairly rare and obscure to write that way. Many resources claim the French literary movement, 'Vers libre' is responsible for bringing free verse to the mainstream. Is it though? As far as I know, you don't get more mainstream than Walt Whitman, and many of his writings are in free verse. Granted, he too wrote in approximately the same time period as this movement, but I still believe he wrote his poems a few years before this movement started (1886).