Blank Verse in English Poetry

Relevant Terms:

METERa€"a rhythmic pattern in poetry wherein stresses (accented syllables) recur at fixed intervals. The word "meter" comes from the Greek word for "measure."

FOOTa€"the basic unit of meter; a group of syllables forming a metrical unit; a unit of (usually) two or three syllables that contains one strong stress. Metrical feet are marked by using symbols to represent stressed (/) and unstressed (x; or a flattened out "u" shape) syllables.

IAMB (IAMBIC FOOT)a€"a metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (x /).

PENTAMETERa€"a metrical pattern in which the poetic line consists of five iambic feet; thus, a ten-syllable line with the following pattern: x / x / x / x / x / .

RHYME (EXACT RHYME)a€"when two or more words or phrases contain an identical vowel sound, usually accented, and the subsequent consonant sounds (if any) are identical: free/see; hit/fit; prize/lies.

DRAMATIC MONOLOGUEa€"a poem in which a single (fictional) speaker addresses an implied audience at a critical moment in an ongoing series of events.

FREE VERSEa€"("vers libre"; open form poetry); poetry with no identifiable metrical pattern or rhyme scheme.

STANZAa€"a group of lines of verse, usually marked by a rhyme scheme (a regular pattern of end rhymes) and a predominant metrical pattern.

VERSE PARAGRAPHa€"a group of lines of verse (often in blank verse) which forms a unit within a poem; especially common in long narrative poems.

"Blank verse" or unrhymed iambic pentameter, is one of the best known and most widely used metrical patterns in English poetry, probably because it is so close to the natural rhythms of English speech and so easy to adapt to different levels of languagea€"as Shakespeare does, for example, by having characters from clowns to kings speak in blank verse, but still in distinctive and appropriate voices.

Blank verse was introduced into English verse by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, who along with his older friend Sir Thomas Wyatt also introduced the sonnet and other Italian poetic forms into English poetry in the sixteenth century. Surrey used blank verse (which his publisher called "this strange meter") in his translation of the fourth and second books of Virgil's "Aeneid" (1554, 1557),perhaps modeling it on the "versi sciolti" ("freed verse") of Molza's Italian translation. Blank verse must not, however, be confused with English "free verse" ("vers libre"; "open form" poetry), which lacks both a rhyme scheme and an identifiable metrical pattern, whereas blank verse has a very specific metrical pattern.

The structure of blank verse differs from that of rhymed verse, which tends to break into stanzas. Poems written in blank verse are often divided into "verse paragraphs" of varying lengths, as distinct from stanzas, which usually