blank verse
Pentameter without rhyme
Blank verse is unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter—lines of ten syllables with alternating unstressed and stressed beats.
It's the dominant meter of English dramatic and epic poetry, used by Shakespeare in his plays and Milton in *Paradise Lost*.
The term "blank" refers to the absence of rhyme, not meaning: Much of Shakespeare's dialogue is in blank verse.
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- MiltonBaroque English verse master
- soliloquyDramatic speech to oneself
- monologueUninterrupted solo address
- dialogueSpoken exchange between parties
Marlowe · tragedy · comedy · stage · theater · Elizabethan · Jacobean · playwright
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- MiltonBaroque English verse master
- TennysonVictorian English poet laureate
- BrowningNoted poet's surname
- FrostChilly-sounding surname
Marlowe · Wordsworth · Stevens · Surrey · Wyatt · Keats · Shelley · English tradition
Epic of humanity's expulsion
- MiltonBaroque English verse master
- narrativeAccount of events
- heroicExceptionally brave and noble
- elevatedRaised above usual level
grand style · invocation · epic simile · Homer · Virgil · translation · dignity · gravitas
Shakespeare
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- MiltonBaroque English verse master
- soliloquyDramatic speech to oneself
- monologueUninterrupted solo address
Marlowe · dialogue · tragedy · comedy · stage · theater · Elizabethan · Jacobean · playwright · speech
Shakespeare
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- MiltonBaroque English verse master
- TennysonVictorian English poet laureate
- BrowningNoted poet's surname
Marlowe · Wordsworth · Frost · Stevens · Surrey · Wyatt · Keats · Shelley · English tradition
Paradise Lost
Epic of humanity's expulsion
elevated · grand style · invocation · epic simile · Homer · Virgil · translation · dignity · gravitas · sustained
pentameter
Five-foot poetic line
line · foot · syllable · stress · beat · scansion · prosody · cadence · rhythm · enjambment
- Romantic PoetryWordsworth, Keats, William Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge
- Shakespeare studiesKing Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Merchant of Venice
- literaturebooks, book, fiction, poetry, stories
- English LiteratureShakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, Bronte, Chaucer
- literary formsnovel, novels, novella, poetry, poetry collections
- poetrypoem, poems, poetry, verses, rhyme
blank verserhymed verse
Poetry with matching line-endings
rhyming couplets · ottava rima · limerick · Shakespearean sonnet · Petrarchan sonnet
blank versefree verse
Poetry without fixed structure
prose poetry · prose · villanelle · sonnet · sestina
blanket, blank, verse, blanks, blanketing, blanketed, blanked, blankly, blankness