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#Blank Verse:

Blank verse is poetry written in regular, metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always composed of iambic pentameter. It has a conventional meter that is used for verse drama and long narrative poems.
It is often used in descriptive and reflective poems and dramatic monologues.

Example 1:

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit,
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world  and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man

(From John Milton's 'Paradise Lost')

Example #2: Mending Walls (By Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

This poem has no proper rhyme scheme. However, there is consistent meter in 10 syllables of each line. It is following the iambic pentameter pattern with five feet in each line.

Example #3: Hamlet (By William Shakespeare)

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. …

Hamlet gives us a perfect example of a typical blank verse, written in iambic pentameter. Shakespeare employed the deliberate effort to use the syllables in a particular way. He brought variation by using caesuras (pause) in the middle of the line, as in the third line. Shakespeare has other literary pieces that are also good sources of blank verse examples.

Example #4: Dr. Faustus (By Christopher Marlowe)

You stars that reign’d at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into entrails of yon labouring clouds, …
So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven …

Marlowe developed this potential in the late 16th century. Marlowe was the first author who exploited the potential of blank verse for writing a powerful speech, as given here. The pattern utilized here is iambic pentameter.

Example #5: Ulysses (By Alfred Lord Tennyson)

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race …
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

Just look at the above example in which the first line is written in regular pentameter. However, there is a little variation in the stressed pattern in the following lines that is again revived in the last two lines, and does not follow any rhyme scheme.

Example #6: Macbeth (By William Shakespeare)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death …

William Shakespeare wrote verses in iambic pentameter pattern, without rhyme. Macbeth is a good example of blank verse. Many speeches in this play are written in the form of blank verse.

Example #7: Frost at Midnight (By Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores.
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God…

Coleridge has used iambic pentameter – ten syllables, with five stressed syllables in this example. Though there is no rhyme scheme, readers can feel the rhythm of a real speech due to proper use of meter in this blank verse.

Example #8: Thanatopsis (By William Cullen Bryant)

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile.

This blank verse does not have any rhyme scheme, but it brings a slight rhythm and cadence that mimics a pattern readers could hear and feel like listening to nature.

Example #9: 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 …
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose …

This example does not follow any rhyme scheme, but it is written in blank verse with iambic pentameter patterns of unaccented and accented syllables.

Example #10: 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…
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined …

Coleridge has jotted down these lines as a spontaneous feel while sitting in his garden. He has written it in a blank verse without any rhyme scheme, yet it follows iambic pentameter.

Function of Blank Verse

Originating from Latin and Greek sources, blank verse is widely employed as a vehicle in English dramatic poetry and prose, to create specific grandeur. Blank verse has similarity to normal speech but it is written in a variety of patterns, which bring interruptions such as pauses. Therefore, the intention is to produce a formal rhythmical pattern that creates musical effect. Hence, it tends to capture the attention of the readers and the listeners, which is its primary objective.



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#Shakespearean Sonnet
  
It is a poem of 14 lines, following the rhyme pattern of abab cdcd efef gg.

Example:
Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
(Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare)





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Onamatopoeia: words, which are used to mimic sounds.

Examples:

The duck said 'quack', 'quack' and 'quack'.

The fan went 'zzzzhhrrzzzzhrrr'.


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Poetic diction

It means choice of words in poetry. According to poets like Alexander Gray, the language of poetry is specialised and remote from common speech. William Wordsworth attacked this concept and asserted that there is no difference between the language of prose and poetry.


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Poetic truth is different from factual truth. Poetic truth is about how a poem expresses the beauty and mystery of things around us.

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Alliteration

Alliteration is a term to describe a literary device in which a series of words begin with the same consonant sound.

Example:
  She sells seashells by the sea-shore.


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Beats and feet


Iamb  -  unstressed followed by stressed syllables

Trochee - stressed followed by unstressed syllables

Anapest  - unstressed syllable followed by unstressed syllable and then by stressed syllables)

Dactyl - stressed syllable by unstressed syllable and then another unstressed syllable.


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Iamb, Iambic:

A foot or a pair of two beats - an unstressed beat followed by a stressed beat.

Anapaest, anapaestic:
  A foot of three beats - two ustressed and the last stressed.

Trochee, trochaic
  A foot of two beats - a stressed followed by an unstressed beat.

Dactyl
    A dactyl is a foot in poetic meter. In quantitative verse, often used in Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight. In accentual verse, often used in English, it is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables—the opposite is the anapaest.





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Enjambment in Poetry

  In poetry, Enjambment is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning runs over from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation.

Enjambment is a term used in poetry to refer to lines that end without punctuation and without completing a sentence or clause. ... 

Example:

From 'Endymion' by John Keats
(lines 2–4)

Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us...


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Heptet

Heptet is a stanza with seven lines.


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Rising rhythm

  Lines made up of iambic and anapaestic feet produce a rising rhythm because of the  stressed beats for which the voice tends to be pitched slightly higher tone after unstressed beats when the voice is pitched lower.

Example:
  Read aloud these lines in iambic pentameter from Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander'.

Her vaile was artificiall flowers and leaues,
Whose workmanship both man and beast deceaues.

( old English - words were differently spelt, then)


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Lyric
    A lyric is defined as a poem that expresses a single emotion. A lyric is subjective. In lyric poetry, the poet is occupied with himself. His thoughts and emotions constitute the subject matter of his lyric. Sometimes, it becomes difficult to identify the 'I' in a lyric poem. Even the titles of poems are no indication as to their themes. For  example, 'Ode to a Nightingale' and 'An Ode to a skylark' are not about birds. In highly composite poetry, it is difficult to draw the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity.

Best Examples of lyric poems:

1. William Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey',
'The Solitary Reaper'

2. Milton's sonnet, 'On His Blindness'

3. Many poems of metaphysical poets like Donne.

4. The shorter poems and dramatic monologues of Browning and Tennyson.

5. P.B.Shelley's 'Ode to the West Wind'

6.Keats' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'

7. Herrick's 'To Blossoms'



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Romantic Movement in English Poetry

The romantic movement in English poetry explored how the natural world and the inner world of emotions of the poet come together. Romanticism is the expression of sharpened sensibilities and heightened imaginative feeling. The literature of this period, which began in the 18th century was free from restrictions and technicalities.
    John Keats(1795- 1821) was a key romantic poet. The other great romantic poets were Shelley and Byron. There were other romantic poets, too.



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The Idyll
  The Idyll is not a distinct species of poetry; it may take the form of a short lyric, a longer poem, a passage in a play, epic, ballad or any other kind of poem. The Idyll derives its name from a Greek word meaning, 'a little picture'. It is a description generally in verse of some scene or event, which is strikingly picturesque and complete in itself.
  The idyll has its origin with classical poets like Theocritus and Virgil. They wrote pastoral idylls. A pastoral idyll avoids the mournful tone of a pastoral elegy and confines itself to the description of placid and happy existence.
  The two important characteristics of the idyll are its brevity and pictorial effect. One of the earliest idylls in English is Marlowe's 'The Passionate Shepherd to his Love'. Milton's L'Allegro can be considered a series of idylls - each one a picture of happy life. Wordsworth's 'Lines Written in March' is a beautiful idyll depicting a spring scene in England. The pastoral scenes in Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' and 'The Winter's Tale' can be considered idylls of country life. Tennyson termed his short and pleasing narratives as 'English Idylls'. Browning wrote a series of dramatic idylls. Henry Longfellow's 'The Village Blacksmith' is an idyll.
   Thus, generally, the idyll keeps close to ordinary life and gives an idealised version of it.

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Villanelle

The villanelle is a form of poetry with 19 heroic lines - 5 tercets and one quatrain. Originally,  a dancing folk-form(in Italian, vilano means a peasant, villanella a country girl), villanelles in poetry are quite difficult. Some modern examples are Empson's 'Missing Dates', Roethke's 'The Waking', Bishop's 'One Art' and Dylan Thomas's  'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night'.


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Grand Style
  The main attribute of the grand style is the perfection of expression that transmutes the subject and transports the reader to a sublime experience. The grand style was practised by John Milton in all his works. Milton effects the grand style through several devices like the use of classical and literary allusions, employment of Latin and Greek constructions and use of Homeric similes. Other devices are repetition of words, arrangement of adjectives, rhetorical questions and alliteration.


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Epic Simile
  An epic simile is an extended and elaborate form of simile in which a subject is compared to something at such a length and detail that it is momentarily lost sight of. John Milton uses several epic similes in Paradise Lost. One example is Milton's comparison of Satan with a whale in the first book of Paradise Lost.



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Imagists

It is a school of poetry in the 1910s to 1920s advocating poetry written in short lines each containing a clear image; Pound was a leading member.

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White Space in Poetry

The silent meaning found in the beginning, in margins, in-between words and lines and in other spaces in a poem.