Shakespeare’s use of blank verse

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Blank verseBlank verse forms the basic pattern of language in Shakespeare's plays. Blank verse in its regular form is a verse line of ten syllables with five stresses and no rhyme .

Hence it is called as "blank”. It was first used in England by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the Aeneid (c.1554).

Shakespeare's blank verseIn general, Shakespeare's blank verse, and the verse of his peers,

evolved over the years from regular ten-syllable, regular, end-stopped lines:

(Romeo and Juliet, 2.2.1)

Hamlet's most famous soliloquy begins relatively regularly, but the following lines each have an extra syllable:

Use of Blank verse in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare

Example of drama vocabulary-comedy

Shakespeare's use of blank verse, or unrhymed iambic pentameter, is a principal element of his plays. In rhymed verse, the words that fall at the end of lines sound very similar, like "love" and "dove," or "moon" and "June.“

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,And ye that on the sands with printless footDo chase the ebbing Neptune, and fly himWhen he 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;...(The Tempest, 5.1)

Shakespeare also used enjambment more often in his verse. 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 excerpt all of this makes his later blank verse extremely rich and diverse.

But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,So far from cheer and from your former state,That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.

Example of blank verse from Hamlet

REFERENCES

1.www.internetshakespeare.uvic.ca

2. www.slideplayer.com

3. www.cliffnotes.com

4. wikipedia