02-22-2014, 12:46 AM
"Blank Verse" is verse written in a metrical line (often in iambic pentameter as in Shakespearean plays) but lacking in rhyme. Free iambic verse has no designated line length and generally has some kind of rhyme, but the "free" comes from freedom from a static line length.
"LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats"
-from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Elliot
As you can see "I" and "Sky", as well as "streets" and "retreats" also rhyme. There is also the internal rhyme of "etherized", and the line length shifts from line to line. None of this is characteristic of "blank verse".
HOWEVER: I wasn't even talking about free iambic verse, I was simply making the distinction between it and "free verse".
Dale
"LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats"
-from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Elliot
As you can see "I" and "Sky", as well as "streets" and "retreats" also rhyme. There is also the internal rhyme of "etherized", and the line length shifts from line to line. None of this is characteristic of "blank verse".
HOWEVER: I wasn't even talking about free iambic verse, I was simply making the distinction between it and "free verse".
Dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.