| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The first known use of blank verse in the English language was by Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey in his interpretation of the Æneid (c. 1554). He was possibly inspired by the Latin original, as classical Latin verse (as well as Greek verse) did not use rhyme; he may have been inspired by the Italian verse form of versi sciolti, which also contained no rhyme.
Christopher Marlowe was the first English author to make full use of the potential of blank verse, and also established it as the dominant verse form for English drama in the age of Elizabeth I and James I. The major achievements in English blank verse were made by William Shakespeare, who wrote much of the content of his plays in unrhymed iambic pentameter, and Milton, whose Paradise Lost is written in blank verse. After Milton (in fact, during his later life), blank verse went out of fashion and for a century and a half the favored verse form in English was that of couplets. Romantic English poets such as William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley ( August 4, 1792 July 8, 1822) was an English Romantic poet. He is now most famous for poems such as " Ozymandias", " Ode to the West Wind", "To a Skylark", and "The Masque of Anarchy"; for his association with contemporaries John Kea, and John KeatsJohn Keats ( October 31, 1795 February 23, 1821) was one of the principal poets in the English Romantic movement. During his short life, his work was the subject of constant politically motivated critical attack, and it was not until much later that the s revived blank verse as a major form. Following shortly afterwards, Alfred Lord TennysonAlfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson ( August 6, 1809 October 6, 1892) is generally regarded as one of the greatest English poets. Much of his verse was based on classical or mythological themes. Idylls of the King ( 1859) takes its subject from Arthurian became particularly devoted to blank verse, using it for example in his long narrative poem "The Princess", as well as for one of his most famous poems: " UlyssesUlysses is poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, written in 1833 but not published until 1842. It is narrated by an aged Ulysses who has become dissatisfied with his life as king of Ithaca. Ulysses has spent years fighting the Trojans (as described in The Iliad)".Russian bylinaBylina ( Russian: ) is a traditional epic, heroic narrative poetry of early East Slavs of Ruthenia, the tradition continued in Russia and Ukraine. Bylinas are kind of poetry without rhyme ( blank verse), but with a characteristic rhythm, a kind of free ves are in blank verse.
Poetic form