What is blank verse? Here’s a quick and simple definition: Show
Some additional key details about blank verse:
Blank Verse PronunciationHere's how to pronounce blank verse: blank vurse Blank Verse in DepthIn order to understand blank verse in more depth, it’s helpful to have a strong grasp of a few other literary terms related to poetry. We cover each of these in depth on their own respective pages, but below is a quick overview to help make understanding blank verse easier.
Blank Verse and Iambic PentameterSince blank verse almost always involves the use of iambic pentameter, it's helpful to have a grasp of how that meter looks and sounds. Iambic pentameter is defined by two things:
Here's an example of a line of iambic pentameter from one of Shakespeare's sonnets, with unstressed and stressed syllables highlighted:
As you can see, the line contains a total of ten syllables, and follows a stress pattern of "da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum." A Note on Metric Variations within Blank VerseWriting exclusively in iambic pentameter can be both difficult and limiting for the writer, and can also become tiresome for the reader. For that reason, even poems written in strict meter might sometimes contain inconsistencies—or "variations"—in their meter. For instance, a poem written in an iambic pentameter may suddenly substitute an iamb for a different foot—for example, a trochee, the iamb's opposite—to create a pause, accommodate a certain word, or vary the poem's rhythm. Take the opening line of the poem "The Second Coming" by Yeats:
The first foot of the, "turning," is a trochee ("stressed-unstressed") rather than an iamb ("unstressed-stressed"). But every foot after the first is an iamb. This sort of occasional substitution does not change the overall categorization of a poem's meter. In other words, meter is somewhat flexible—a poem written in iambic pentameter with occasional trochees interspersed is still said to be in iambic pentameter, since that's the poem's predominant meter. In addition, a poem written in iambic pentameter will still count as iambic pentameter even if some lines have nine or eleven syllables rather than the standard ten. Blank Verse ExamplesThe examples below draw from poetry written between the 16th and 20th centuries—the period when blank verse was the most commonly used form of poetry. In each example, we've highlighted the "unstressed-stressed" pattern of iambic pentameter to help you more easily identify the structure of the poetry. Blank Verse in Shakespeare's HamletLike all of Shakespeare's plays, Hamlet is composed in blank verse. Shakespeare's prolific use of blank verse, in fact, arguably helped to popularize the form for centuries to come. In this passage, Hamlet curses his mother for remarrying so soon after her husband's death.
Blank Verse in Christopher Marlowe's Doctor FaustusThis passage from Marlowe's tragic play, Doctor Faustus, contains a monologue spoken by Doctor Faustus, who has made a pact with the devil for earthly power during his life followed by an eternity in hell, in the final hour before his damnation. When Faustus says "thou" he is speaking to himself.
Notice how the first line contains just nine syllables instead of ten (it begins on a stressed syllable, meaning that the line's first iamb has "dropped" its first, unstressed syllable). The regular use of iambic pentameter picks back up in the second line. Notice also how in the fifth line, an iamb is replaced with a spondee (two stressed syllables) to accommodate the repetition of "rise, rise." John Milton's Paradise LostMilton's epic poem Paradise Lost retells the Biblical story of the fist man and woman's fall from grace, and their subsequent banishment from the Garden of Eden. This passage is excerpted from the book's final chapter.
Note the metric variation in the middle of the first line. In this case, what would normally be the fourth iamb of the line is instead a trochee ("stressed-unstressed") to accommodate the appearance of the second instance of "goodness" in the line. Additionally, the fifth and sixth lines each begin with trochees rather than iambs. Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses"Tennyson's famous poem, written from the perspective of an aged Ulysses, is an example of perfect iambic pentameter—in this excerpt from the end of the poem, there is not a single variation from the poem's standard iambic pentameter.
W. B. Yeats's "The Second Coming"This famous poem by Yeats is written in blank verse. Note, however, how the first word of the poem creates a metric variation in the line, since the stress pattern of the word "turning" makes the word a trochee. Because a trochee is stressed-unstressed, beginning the poem with it mean that the first syllable is stressed. This gives the poem a more forceful opening—which is appropriate, given the magnitude of the poem's subject matter: Yeats is describing post-war Europe as an apocalyptic landscape. The excerpt shown here includes the first eight lines of the poem.
Note that in the sixth line, "ceremony" must be pronounced in three syllables rather than four for the iambic pentameter to be uninterrupted, so elision is used to blend the Y at the end of the word "ceremony" into the O at the beginning of the word "of." The resulting pronunciation of those two words would be something like "cer-uh-moan-yuv." Robert Frost's "Mending Wall""Mending Wall" is a famous poem by Robert Frost—who, writing in the 20th century, is among the more modern examples of poets who wrote in blank verse. Here are the final lines of the poem:
Note two things about this excerpt: the second line begins with two trochees instead of the usual iambs, and the final line has an extra unstressed syllable at the end, a feature known in poetry as a "feminine ending." Why Do Writers Use Blank Verse?Blank verse is such a common form that some scholars estimate as much as three-quarters of all English poetry written between the 16th and 20th centuries was written in blank verse. The form lends itself to writing long narrative poems and plays, since iambic pentameter has a rhythm that mimics the natural cadence of speech, and it's therefore quite easy to listen to for extended periods of time without fatiguing the listener. For instance: however difficult it may be for modern readers to understand the language of Shakespeare's plays, it's hard to deny that the rhythm of his writing lends itself well to dialogue. Apart from the rhythm of blank verse being well-suited to longer narratives and dialogue, the simple fact that blank verse doesn't have to rhyme means that writers are much less constrained than they would be when writing in formal verse, so a poet might choose to write in blank verse as a way of giving their writing more structure than free verse, without restricting themselves too much by imposing a rhyme scheme on their work. Other Helpful Blank Verse Resources |