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See also:BLANK See also:VERSE , the unrhymed measure of See also:iambic decasyllable in five beats which is usually adopted in See also:English epic and dramatic See also:poetry. The epithet is due to the See also:absence of the See also:rhyme which the See also:ear expects at the end of successive lines. The decasyllabic See also:line occurs for the first See also:- TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
- TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
- TIME, STANDARD
time in a Provencal poem of the loth See also:century, but in the earliest instances preserved it is already constructed with such regularity as to suggest that it was no new invention. It was certainly being used almost simultaneously in the See also:north of See also:France. See also:Chaucer employed it in his Compleynte to Pitie about 1370. In all the literatures of western See also:Europe it became generally used, but always with rhyme. In the beginning of the 16th century, however, certain See also:Italian poets made the experiment of See also:writing decasyllables without rhyme. The tragedy of Sophonisba (1515) of G. G. Trissino (1478-1550) was the earliest See also:work completed in this See also:form; it was followed in 1525 by the didactic poem Le Api (The Bees), of Giovanni Rucellai (1475-1525), who announced his intention of writing " See also:Con verso Etrusco See also:dalle rime sciolto," in consequence of which expression this See also:kind of See also:metre was called versi sciolti or blank verse. In a very See also:short time this form was largely adopted in Italian dramatic poetry, and the comedies of See also:Ariosto, the Aminta of See also:Tasso and the Pastor Fido of See also:Guarini are composed in it. The iambic blank verse of See also:Italy was, how-ever, mainly hendecasyllabic, not decasyllabic, and under See also:French influences the See also:habit of rhyme soon returned.
Before the See also:close of Trissino's See also:life, however, his invention had been introduced into another literature, where it was destined to enjoy a longer and more glorious existence. Towards the
close of the reign of See also:- HENRY
- HENRY (1129-1195)
- HENRY (c. 1108-1139)
- HENRY (c. 1174–1216)
- HENRY (Fr. Henri; Span. Enrique; Ger. Heinrich; Mid. H. Ger. Heinrich and Heimrich; O.H.G. Haimi- or Heimirih, i.e. " prince, or chief of the house," from O.H.G. heim, the Eng. home, and rih, Goth. reiks; compare Lat. rex " king "—" rich," therefore " mig
- HENRY, EDWARD LAMSON (1841– )
- HENRY, JAMES (1798-1876)
- HENRY, JOSEPH (1797-1878)
- HENRY, MATTHEW (1662-1714)
- HENRY, PATRICK (1736–1799)
- HENRY, PRINCE OF BATTENBERG (1858-1896)
- HENRY, ROBERT (1718-1790)
- HENRY, VICTOR (1850– )
- HENRY, WILLIAM (1795-1836)
Henry VIII., Henry See also:Howard, See also:earl of See also:Surrey, translated two books of the Aeneid into English rhymeless verse, " See also:drawing " them " into a See also:strange metre." Surrey's *blank verse is stiff and timid, permitting itself no divergence from the exact iambic See also:movement:
'" Who can See also:express the slaughter of that See also:night,
Or tell the number of the corpses slain,
Or can in tears bewail them worthily?
The See also:ancient famous See also:city falleth down,
That many years did hold such See also:seignory."
Surrey soon found an imitator in See also:Nicholas Grimoald, and in 1562 blank verse was first applied to English dramatic poetry in the See also:Gorboduc of See also:Sackville and See also:Norton. In 1576, in the See also:Steel See also:Glass of See also:Gascoigne, it was first used for See also:satire, and by the See also:year 1585 it had come into almost universal use for theatrical purposes. In See also:Lyly's The Woman in the See also:- MOON (a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. Mond, Du. maan, Dan. maane, &c., and cognate with such Indo-Germanic forms as Gr. µlip, Sans. ma's, Irish mi, &c.; Lat. uses luna, i.e. lucna, the shining one, lucere, to shine, for the moon, but preserves the word i
- MOON, SIR RICHARD, 1ST BARONET (1814-1899)
Moon and See also:Peele's See also:Arraignment of See also:Paris (both of 1584) we find blank verse struggling with rhymed verse and successfully holding its own. The earliest See also:play written entirely in blank verse is supposed to be The Misfortunes of See also:Arthur (1587) of See also:- THOMAS
- THOMAS (c. 1654-1720)
- THOMAS (d. 110o)
- THOMAS, ARTHUR GORING (1850-1892)
- THOMAS, CHARLES LOUIS AMBROISE (1811-1896)
- THOMAS, GEORGE (c. 1756-1802)
- THOMAS, GEORGE HENRY (1816-187o)
- THOMAS, ISAIAH (1749-1831)
- THOMAS, PIERRE (1634-1698)
- THOMAS, SIDNEY GILCHRIST (1850-1885)
- THOMAS, ST
- THOMAS, THEODORE (1835-1905)
- THOMAS, WILLIAM (d. 1554)
Thomas See also:Hughes. See also:Marlowe now immediately followed, with the magnificent movement of his Tamburlaine (1589), which was mocked by satirical critics as " the swelling bombast of bragging blank verse " (See also:Nash) and " the spacious volubility of a drumming decasyllable " (See also:Greene), but which introduced a See also:great new See also:music into English poetry, in such " mighty lines " as
" Still climbing after knowledge See also:infinite,
And always moving as the restless See also:spheres,"
" See where See also:Christ's See also:blood streams in the See also:firmament!" Except, however, when he is stirred by a particularly vivid emotion, the blank verse of Marlowe continues to be monotonous and See also:uniform. It still depends too exclusively on a counting of syllables. But See also:Shakespeare, after having returned to rhyme in his earliest dramas, particularly in The Two Gentlemen of See also:Verona, adopted blank verse conclusively about the time that the career of Marlowe was closing, and he carried it to the greatest perfection in variety, suppleness and fulness. He released it from the excessive bondage that it had hitherto endured; as See also:Robert See also:Bridges has said, " Shakespeare, whose See also:early verse may be described as syllabic, gradually came to write a verse dependent on stress." In comparison with that of his predecessors and successors, the blank verse of Shakespeare is essentially See also:regular, and his See also:prosody marks the admirable mean between the stiffness of his dramatic forerunners and the laxity of those who followed him. Most of Shakespeare's lines conform to the normal type of the decasyllable, and the See also:rest are accounted for by See also:familiar and rational rules of variation. The ease and fluidity of his prosody were abused by his successors, particularly by See also:Beaumont and See also:Fletcher, who employed the soft feminine ending to excess ; in See also:Massinger dramatic blank verse came too near to See also:prose, and in See also:Heywood and See also:Shirley it was relaxed to the point of losing all See also:nervous vigour.
The later dramatists gradually abandoned that rigorous difference which should always be preserved between the See also:cadence of verse and prose, and the example of See also:Ford, who endeavoured to revive the old severity of blank verse, was not followed. But just as the form was sinking into dramatic desuetude, it took new life in the direction of epic, and found its noblest proficient in the See also:person of See also:John See also:Milton. The most intricate and therefore the most interesting blank verse which has been written is that of Milton in the great poems of his later life. He reduced the elisions, which had been frequent in the Elizabethan poets, to See also:law; he admitted an extraordinary variety in the number of stresses; he deliberately inverted the See also:rhythm in See also:- ORDER
- ORDER (through Fr. ordre, for earlier ordene, from Lat. ordo, ordinis, rank, service, arrangement; the ultimate source is generally taken to be the root seen in Lat. oriri, rise, arise, begin; cf. " origin ")
- ORDER, HOLY
order to produce particular effects; and he multiplied at will the caesurae or breaks in a line. Such verses as
" Arraying with reflected See also:purple and See also:gold
Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep
Universal reproach, far worse to See also:bear
Me, me only, just See also:object of his ire are not mistaken in rhythm, nor to be scanned by forcing them to obey the conventional stress. They are instances, and
See also:Paradise Lost is full of such, of Milton's exquisite See also:art in ringing changes upon the metrical type of ten syllables, five stresses and a rising rhythm, so as to make the whole texture of the verse See also:respond to his poetical thought. Writing many years later in Paradise Regained and in See also:Samson Agonistes, Milton retained his See also:system of blank verse in its See also:general characteristics, but he treated it with increased dryness and with a certain harshness of effect. It is certainly in his biblical See also:drama that blank verse has been pushed to its most artificial and technical perfection, and it is there that Milton's theories are to be studied best; yet it must be confessed that learning excludes beauty in some of the very audacious irregularities which he here permits himself in Samson Agonistes. Such lines as
" Made arms ridiculous, useless the See also:forgery
My griefs not only See also:pain me as a lingering disease—Drunk with See also:idolatry, drunk with See also:wine
Justly, yet despair not of his final See also:pardon are constructed with perfect comprehension of metrical law, yet
they differ so much from the normal structure of blank verse that they need to be explained, and to imitate them would be perilous. A persistent weakness in the third See also:foot has ever been the snare of English blank verse, and it is this See also:element of monotony and dulness which Milton is ceaselessly endeavouring to obviate by his wonderful inversions, elisions and breaks.
After the Restoration, and after a brief See also:period of experiment with rhymed plays, the dramatists returned to the use of blank verse, and in the hands of See also:Otway, See also:- LEE
- LEE (or LEGIT) ROWLAND (d. 1543)
- LEE, ANN (1736–1784)
- LEE, ARTHUR (1740–1792)
- LEE, FITZHUGH (1835–1905)
- LEE, GEORGE ALEXANDER (1802-1851)
- LEE, HENRY (1756-1818)
- LEE, JAMES PRINCE (1804-1869)
- LEE, NATHANIEL (c. 1653-16g2)
- LEE, RICHARD HENRY (1732-1794)
- LEE, ROBERT EDWARD (1807–1870)
- LEE, SIDNEY (1859– )
- LEE, SOPHIA (1950-1824)
- LEE, STEPHEN DILL (1833-1908)
Lee and See also:Dryden, it recovered much of its magnificence. In the 18th century, See also:Thomson and others made use of a very regular and somewhat monotonous form of blank verse for descriptive and didactic poems, of which the Night Thoughts of See also:Young is, from a metrical point of view, the most interesting.
With these poets the form is little open to See also:licence, while inversions and breaks are avoided as much as possible. Since the 18th century, blank verse has been subjected to See also:constant revision in the hands of See also:Wordsworth, See also:Coleridge, See also:Shelley, See also:Keats, See also:Tennyson, the Brownings and See also:Swinburne, but no See also:radical changes, of a nature unknown to Shakespeare and Milton, have been introduced into it.
See J. A. See also:Symonds, Blank Verse (1895) ; See also:Walter Thomas, Le Decasyllabe romain et sa See also:fortune en Europe (1904); Robert Bridges Milton's Prosody (1894) ; Ed. See also:Guest, A See also:History of English Rhythms (1882) ; J. Mothere, See also:Les Theories du vers herosque anglais (1886) ; J. Schipper, Englische Metrik (1881-1888). (E.
End of Article: BLANK VERSE
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