Blank verse

From Citizendium
Revision as of 14:36, 19 January 2014 by imported>Martin Wyatt
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Blank verse is the English term for unrhymed verse, usually applied to the iambic pentameter. Probably first used by the Tudor poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), in a translation of the second book of Virgil's Aeneid.

Some of the greatest works of English poetry have been written in this medium: Paradise Lost, The Prelude, and The Ring and the Book. It has also been much used in drama.