Etymology and Meanings of Literary Device of Blank Verse
Adapted from unrhymed Greek and Latin heroic verse, the literary device of blank verse entered the English language through Italy in the 16th century along with other classical meters. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, introduced the meter, along with the sonnet and other Italian humanist verse forms, to England in the early 16th century.
Definition of Literary Device of Blank Verse
In literary terms, it means to use blank verse with iambic pentameter in poetry. A blank verse line has a total of 10 syllables in unstressed/stressed order.
Types of Blank Verse Poetry
There are total four types of blank verses with the following patterns of syllables as here stressed is (S) and unstressed syllable is (U).
- Iambic pentameter (U/S)
Example: U S U S U S U S U S
When I do count the clock that tells the time
- Trochaic tetrameter (S/U)
Example: It is the reverse of the Iambic meter.
S U S U S U S U
Tell me not in mournful numbers
- Anapestic trimeter (U/U/S)
Example: It is total 9 syllables; first two unstressed and one stressed syllable.
- Dactylic hexameter (S/U/U)
Example: It has total 17 syllables; 6 stressed and 15 unstressed.
Literary Examples of Blank Verse
Example # 1
From “Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! And again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur. – Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs.
These lines from the poem of William Wordsworth “Lines Written a Few Miles”show the use of iambic pentamer where five pairs of meters have been used with a U/S syllable pattern. It is a beautiful use of iambic pentamer. Just read the lines and see how they have used stressed syllables and unstressed syllables.
Example # 2
From “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” by S. T. Coleridge
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile.
These lines occur in the poem of Coleridge, “This-Lime Tree Bower My Prison.” It shows a beautiful use of iambic pentameter with a stressed and an unstressed syllable although it has no fixed rhyme scheme.
Example # 3
From “Spring Offensive” by Wilfred Owen
Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept.
But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
This black verse poem by Wilfred Owen shows the mixed use of iambic trochaic although the first three lines are in iambic pentameter. It is a beautiful blank verse example.
Example # 4
From “The Unknown Bird” by Edward Thomas
Three lovely notes he whistled, too soft to be heard
If others sang; but others never sang
In the great beech-wood all that May and June.
No one saw him: I alone could hear him
Though many listened. Was it but four years
Ago? or five? He never came again.
This poem also shows the beauty of blank verse although it uses an apestic trimeter. Yet, its main beauty lies in the use of blank verse.
Example # 5
From “Counter-Attack” By Siegfried Sassoon
We’d gained our first objective hours before
While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes,
Pallid, unshaven and thirsty, blind with smoke.
Things seemed all right at first. We held their line,
With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed,
And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench.
These lines show the skill of Sassoon in using blank verse. The beauty of blank verse lies in the grandeur that the poetry shows through iambic pentameter with unstressed and stressed syllables.
How to Create Blank Verse
Creating blank verse poetry is not difficult. All you have to choose to practice all types of metrical patterns and then express your feelings in tightly knit iambic or anapestic meters. These two types of meters are easy to use.
Benefits of Using Blank Verse
It has the following benefits.
- It makes your poetic output grand in its quality.
- It creates musical quality and good notes.
- It is easy to read, easy to memorize, and easy to sing.
- Easy to use for identifying metrical pattern
Literary Device of Blank Verse in Literary Theory
- Blank verse is a poetic device and it is mostly used in the structural critique of a poem or poetry, yet its role in theories has not declined. It is mostly used in formalism rather than any other literary theory. In other theoretical perspectives, its role is minimal in interpreting cultural or social perspectives mostly on an indigenous and regional level and to some extent on the national level.
Suggested Readings
Abrams, Meyer Howard, and Geoffrey Harpham. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.
Shaw, Robert Burns. Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use. Ohio University Press, 2007. Print. Weinfield, Henry. The Blank-Verse Tradition from Milton to Stevens: Freethinking and the Crisis of Modernity. Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print.
Suggested read: Literary Device Ballad