Writing Blank Verse
Beyond the Line
For my slowly-progressing epic poem about Pyrrho and Alexander the Great, I’m writing in blank verse, i.e., unrhymed iambic pentameter. Many of the great English-language poets have written in blank verse, including Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Frost. Blank verse is especially appropriate, if you ask me, for epic poetry, since it’s something like the equivalent in English of ancient Greek dactylic hexameter (another option is to employ fourteeners, as Matthew Arnold preferred for translations of Homer and as A.E. Stallings did in her amazing translation of Lucretius). Aside from its epic and dramatic pedigree, one of the attractions of blank verse is that it steers clear of the chimey sound and forced rhymes of heroic couplets, yet still maintains a regular pulse.
There be dragons, however. For my own benefit, this post summarizes some (updated) lessons I’ve learned through attention to the poetic masters, discussion with my friend and fellow epic poet Dave Jilk, my own poetic practice, and a recent reading of Robert B. Shaw’s book Blank Verse:
Blank verse (from the French vers blanc meaning “white verse”) can feel like pallid prose that’s simply been chopped up into ten syllables per line. I prefer to add some color by means of alliteration (as in Beowulf), assonance, consonance, and internal rhyme. In my Pyrrhiad, I’ve also been finishing off each passage (they’re not really stanzas) with a rhymed couplet. Heresy!
If sentences and clauses always conclude at the close of a line (”end-stopping”), the rhythm becomes robotically regular. Varying their lengths via enjambment can build suspense and give more complex thoughts time to stretch out over multiple lines; this is especially helpful for the extended similes I’m including to lend Homeric atmosphere to my poem.
The verse sounds stiff and wooden if every foot is an iamb (ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM ta-TUM), so it’s best to choreograph the interplay of rhythm and meter, for instance by replacing some of the iambs with trochees (TUM-ta) and anapests (ta-ta-TUM), and by using so-called feminine endings, wherein the line contains one additional “weak” syllable at the end.
Another source of artificiality - contrived word order - can be found especially in Milton, who will write things like “what in me is dark illumine” (from the proem to Paradise Lost); to keep it natural, I try to use normal English grammar and word order, as has been the usual poetic practice from Wordsworth onward.
It’s tempting to “pad the line” with adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and connectives in order to consistently hit ten syllables; to avoid this, I err on the side of compressed language, which in any case is consistent with Homeric diction.
In fine:
I treat these not as rigid rules; instead
they’re guides to follow as I strive to make
a poem that delights both mind and ear.
What a wonderful update! Beowulf is a favorite of mine, and a big reason is the use of alliteration in the poem. I suspect the influence of Beowulf early on is a big reason why alliteration often makes its way into my own work. The use of enjambment is also another favorite. I love the stanza you included after the list of techniques. And your "Pyrrhiad" regarding the invocation of the muse absolutely beautiful 👏