What Is Blank Verse? | Definition & Examples

Blank verse can be described as the main form existing in English poetry since the sixteenth century before the advent of free verse. Shakespeare, Milton, and Robert Browning are all names of great poets who relied primarily on using Blank verse. So what exactly is blank verse? Here is a formal definition of the term: 

Blank verse is poetry written in regular iambic pentameter but with unrhymed lines.

William Shakespeare has been recognized as the earliest innovator of blank verse. He used it predominantly in his plays, while using rhymed iambic pentameter in his massive catalogue of 154 sonnets.   Here is an example from one of the more famous quotes in Hamlet: 

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep (Act 3, Scene 1)

However, blank verse of this sort remained mostly restricted to drama. For poetry, rhymed verse in iambic pentameter was dominant up to the seventeenth century. That is, until Milton decided to adopt it for his epic poetry beginning with Paradise Lost (published in 1667): 

He call'd so loud, that all the hollow Deep

Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates

Warriers, the Flowr of Heav'n, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can sieze

Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place

After the toyl of Battel to repose

Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find

To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav'n?

As can be seen in the excerpt above, Iambic pentameter is used to achieve a number of rhetorical effects. For example, assonance, consonance, and even slight sarcasm. More than that, the speech mimics conversational language. It is after all, a speech being given to an audience within the context of the play — even if the speaker is Satan himself and the audience his army of hell’s angels. 

Blank verse, despite the dominance of free verse poetry or vers libre remains resilient in the twenty-first century. Although it is not used as frequently as free verse, blank verse remains popular because of how closely it resembles conversational human language, which is the priority of ver libre. This often leads to blank verse and free verse being used simultaneously by modern poets.

Shakespeare, one of the pioneers of blank verse.

Blank verse: Past vs. present

According to the Britannica Encyclopedia, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, was the one who introduced blank verse to England in the early 16th century. While Shakespeare is the most prominent dramatist to innovate the use of blank verse, he wasn’t the first.

Marlowe was the first dramatist to adopt blank verse consistently in his plays, such as in Doctor Faustus:

     Within the bowels of these elements,

     Where we are tortur’d and remain for ever:

     Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib’d

     In one self place; for where we are is hell,

     And where hell is, there must we ever be:

     And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,

     And every creature shall be purified,

     All places shall be hell that are not heaven.

Free verse has become the dominant form of poetry since the 1920s because of the influence of modernism in literature. However, several dominant poets of the modern era continue to use blank verse because of its ability to incorporate natural human speech patterns, as was proven by Shakespeare in his plays. 

W.B. Yeats is a modernist poet, who despite adopting modernist themes, largely stuck to traditional metrical forms such as iambic pentameter. A good example of this would be “The Second Coming” (published in 1924):

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

In this poem, Yeats makes use of iambic pentameter, as well as irregular and occasional rhyme. The theme can be described as modern and refers to “a second coming,” which would be reference to the ominous political atmosphere in post-war Europe that eventually led to the horrors of World War II.  

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Even today, poets regularly make use of iambic pentameter in a similar way, that is, rough iambic pentameter and occasional rhyme without sticking to regular rhyming patterns. A good example would be Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry From Africa” (published in 1962): 

Again brutish necessity wipes its hands

Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again

A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,

The gorilla wrestles with the Superman.

I who am poisoned with the blood of both,

Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?

Walcott, just like Yeats, mixes the use of iambic pentameter with irregular rhyme, as well as traditional poetic devices such as imagery and metaphor while keeping a conversational tone. Another Caribbean poet from Jamaica who relies heavily on blank verse is Dennis Scott. A good example of this would be “Marrysong” (published in 1989):

He never learned her, quite. Year after year

That territory, without seasons, shifted

under his eye. An hour he could be lost

in the walled anger of her quarried hurt

on turning, see cool water laughing where

the day before there were stones in her voice.

The poem can be seen as a metaphysical conceit. This means it creates an analogy by comparing two things that are widely different from each other. In this case, the poet compares understanding a woman’s moods and emotions to a navigator embarking on a journey to find and map new territory that is difficult to map out. Unlike most metaphysical conceits, it is highly refined in terms of its aesthetic appeal.  

More than that, the poem is highly conversational in terms of how it employs modern speech cadences. In the first line, there is the use of a caesura, which introduces a natural pause midway in the line. There’s another natural pause in Line 3 after “eye.” Scott is able to incorporate impressive imagery and a complicated analogy such as “the walled anger of her quarried hurt” within the restrictions of the iambic pentameter and blank verse, all while preserving a conversational tone. 

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, September 18). What Is Blank Verse? | Definition & Examples. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/blank-verse