Blank verse

Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as 'probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century', and Paul Fussell has estimated that 'about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse'.You stars that reign'd at my nativity,Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mistInto the entrails of yon labouring clouds,That when they vomit forth into the air,My limbs may issue from their smoky mouths,So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven.My lord?            A grave.                        He shall not live.                                                Enough.Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly himWhen he comes back; you demi-puppets thatBy moonshine do the green sour ringlets makeWhereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastimeIs to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoiceTo hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimmedThe noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vaultSet roaring war – to the dread rattling thunderHave I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oakWith his own bolt;.......Into what Pit thou seestFrom what highth fal'n, so much the stronger provdHe with his Thunder: and till then who knewThe force of those dire Arms? yet not for thoseNor what the Potent Victor in his rageCan else inflict do I repent or change,Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mindAnd high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit,That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend,And to the fierce contention brought alongInnumerable force of Spirits arm'dThat durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,His utmost power with adverse power oppos'dIn dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,And study of revenge, immortal hate,And courage never to submit or yield:Five years have past; five summers, with the lengthOf five long winters! And again I hearThese waters, rolling from their mountain-springsWith a soft inland murmur. – Once againDo I behold these steep and lofty cliffs...Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lostBeauties and feelings, such as would have beenMost sweet to my remembrance even when agehad dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile...Women of Adamant, fair neophytes—Who thirst for such instruction as we give,Attend, while I unfold a parable.The elephant is mightier than Man,Yet Man subdues him. Why? The elephantIs elephantine everywhere but here (tapping her forehead)And Man, whose brain is to the elephant’sAs Woman’s brain to Man’s—(that’s rule of three),—Conquers the foolish giant of the woods,As Woman, in her turn, shall conquer Man.In Mathematics, Woman leads the way:The narrow-minded pedant still believesThat two and two make four! Why, we can prove,We women—household drudges as we are—That two and two make five—or three—or seven;Or five-and-twenty, if the case demands!Ja, Daja; Gott sei Dank! Doch warum endlich?Hab ich denn eher wiederkommen wollen?Und wiederkommen können? BabylonIst von Jerusalem, wie ich den Weg,Seitab bald rechts, bald links, zu nehmen binGenötigt worden, gut zweihundert Meilen;Und Schulden einkassieren, ist gewissAuch kein Geschäft, das merklich fördert, dasSo von der Hand sich schlagen lässt. Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. It has been described as 'probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century', and Paul Fussell has estimated that 'about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse'. The first documented use of blank verse in the English language was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the Æneid (composed c. 1540; published posthumously, 1554–1557). He may have been inspired by the Latin original as classical Latin verse did not use rhyme; or possibly he was inspired by the Ancient Greek verse or the Italian verse form of versi sciolti, both of which also did not use rhyme. The play Arden of Faversham (around 1590 by an unknown author) is a notable example of end-stopped blank verse. The 1561 play Gorboduc by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville was the first English play to use blank verse. Christopher Marlowe was the first English author to achieve critical notoriety for their use of blank verse. The major achievements in English blank verse were made by William Shakespeare, who wrote much of the content of his plays in unrhymed iambic pentameter, and John Milton, whose Paradise Lost is written in blank verse. Miltonic blank verse was widely imitated in the 18th century by such poets as James Thomson (in The Seasons) and William Cowper (in The Task). Romantic English poets such as William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats used blank verse as a major form. Shortly afterwards, Alfred, Lord Tennyson became particularly devoted to blank verse, using it for example in his long narrative poem 'The Princess', as well as for one of his most famous poems: 'Ulysses'. Among American poets, Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are notable for using blank verse in extended compositions at a time when many other poets were turning to free verse. Marlowe and then Shakespeare developed its potential greatly in the late 16th century. Marlowe was the first to exploit the potential of blank verse for powerful and involved speech: Shakespeare developed this feature, and also the potential of blank verse for abrupt and irregular speech. For example, in this exchange from King John, one blank verse line is broken between two characters: Shakespeare also used enjambment increasingly often in his verse, and in his last plays was given to using feminine endings (in which the last syllable of the line is unstressed, for instance lines 3 and 6 of the following example); all of this made his later blank verse extremely rich and varied. This very free treatment of blank verse was imitated by Shakespeare's contemporaries, and led to general metrical looseness in the hands of less skilled users. However, Shakespearean blank verse was used with some success by John Webster and Thomas Middleton in their plays. Ben Jonson, meanwhile, used a tighter blank verse with less enjambment in his great comedies Volpone and The Alchemist.