Tag Archives: blank verse

in verse # 29 : of the devil’s party

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Dennis Clark

William Blake was Milton’s son.  But it was no easy birth.  In his fine article on Milton’s prosody, John Creaser describes how Milton was able to work so well within the conventions of blank verse.  Creaser begins by summarizing the … Continue reading →

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in verse # 27 : wretched matter and lame Meter

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Dennis Clark

John Milton didn’t know jack about free verse, and yet when he explicated his reason for shunning rime he sounded like he understood the reasoning of the free versifiers at the turn of the last century.  In introducing Paradise lost … Continue reading →

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in verse #26 : organ music

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Dennis Clark

If the last three letters of the f-word are what seems most repellent about it — the sound of “uck” — that would explain how some other words ending that way still seem a bit odd, if not funny or … Continue reading →

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in verse # 23 : mighty line versus ordered speech

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Dennis Clark

It was Kit Marlowe who awakened in Will Shakespeare a hunger for a dramatic speech more nearly reflecting ordinary English speech.  It was Will Shakespeare who made it possible for Kris Kristofferson to write and sing the following lyrics as … Continue reading →

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in verse # 20 : blank verse

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Dennis Clark

Blank verse — the unrhymed iambic pentameter so brilliantly deployed by Shakespeare in his later plays — is an invention of the English renaissance, and specifically of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47), who used it to revise and strengthen … Continue reading →

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