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BLANK VERSE
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Also by Robert B. Shaw:
Poetry:
Comforting the Wilderness
The Wonder of Seeing Double
The Post Office Murals Restored
Below the Surface
Solving for X
Criticism:
The Call of God: The Theme of Vocation in the Poetry of Donne and Herbert
As Editor:
American Poetry since 1960: Some Critical Perspectives
Henry Vaughan: Selected Poems
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BLANK VERSE
A Guide to Its History and Use
Robert B. Shaw
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS Athens
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Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
www.ohio.edu/oupress
© 2007by Ohio University Press
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved
Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper ∞ ™
151413121110090807 54321
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shaw, Robert Burns, 1947–
Blank verse : a guide to its history and use / Robert B. Shaw.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8214-1757-7(alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8214-1757-6(alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8214-1758-4(pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8214-1758-4(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Blank verse, English—History and criticism. I. Title.
PR509.B53S53 2007
821'.009—dc22
2006033521
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To the memory of William Alfred,
poet and friend of poets
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
A Note on References and Symbols xi
CHAPTER 1:The Sounds of Blank Verse 1
CHAPTER2:Before the Twentieth Century 33
CHAPTER 3:Blank Verse and Modernism 82
CHAPTER 4:After Modernism 161
CHAPTER 5:Writing Blank Verse Today 244
Notes 273
Source List for Verse References 283
Credits 291
vii
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PREFACE
As itssubtitle indicates, this book undertakes two tasks: to study the charac-
teristics of the poetic form we call blank verse, and to study the achievements
of poets who have used it from its first emergence up to our own day. These
two strands of interest are intertwined throughout. While the first and last
chapters concentrate on practical considerations for writers and readers of
blank verse, the middle chapters, which are arranged as a historical survey, in
fact carry on the discussion of technique by analyzing numerous examples
written by masters of the form, as well as some by poets whose struggles with
the meter fell short of mastery. The twentieth century and later receives more
expansive treatment than earlier periods because this part of the story has
been overlooked by scholarship. While one may feel some satisfaction simply
in having filled a conspicuous gap, there is an even greater pleasure in demon-
strating the continuing vitality of this form for poets writing today. There is
plenty of poetic vitality to be found in earlier periods as well. Styles may
change, but as Edwin Arlington Robinson reminds us in his fine blank-verse
poem “Rembrandt to Rembrandt,” “in Apollo’s house there are no clocks”
(313). For the young poet wishing to explore blank verse, lively models—both
venerable and contemporary—abound. In examining these models, this dis-
cussion proceeds more like a poetry workshop than like a museum tour.
In the preface to his collection of essays on versification, Vision and Reso-
nance,John Hollander candidly remarks, “English prosody has tended to be
a subject for cranks.”1No system of scansion or of prosodic symbols is without
disadvantages; some become forbiddingly complicated in an effort to define
the more delicate rhythmic nuances. I have opted for a simplified, uncranky
notation, marking the feet of a line according to their patterns of syllables that
are unstressed (x) or stressed (/). I have allowed myself an additional symbol
( ) to indicate an intermediate level of stress. Some prosodists may see this as
\
admitting too much flexibility, others as admitting not enough. While I hope
the scansions offered here will be persuasive, their purpose is not to score
ix
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x Preface
points against competing systems. It is, rather, to be a stimulative device, re-
minding the reader to listen even more carefully than usual, so that the rhyth-
mic effect of each line will register fully. A look at a contour map will alert a
hiker to changes in terrain, but not with the same immediacy as the feel of an
upward or a downward slope underfoot. While symbols and terminology,
preferably applied with some consistency, are needed to discuss a verse passage
efficiently and intelligibly, the ultimate key to its movement will be found by
reading it aloud, weighing in one’s own ear the levels of accent which any sys-
tem of notation can only approximately chart. Readers of this book will be
on the right track if they find themselves vocalizing, annoying librarians and
alarming passengers in neighboring seats on the subway. This is one of the
more virtuous ways I can think of to get in trouble.
My own trouble in writing this book would have been much greater with-
out the help I have received from friends and associates. Several, in conversa-
tion or correspondence, have moved me to clarify points or have introduced
me to poets and poems I might otherwise have missed. For thus sharing their
experience and expertise, I am grateful to Daniel Hall, Eugene Hill, Heidi
Holder, J. Wainwright Love, Joshua Mehigan, and Mary Jo Salter. Welcome en-
couragement came early on from Leslie Brisman and John Hollander. John M.
Walsh offered valuable corrective remarks on initial drafts. My student, Sarah
Giragosian, made many useful suggestions regarding the first and final chapters.
David Sanders, my supportive editor at Ohio University Press, was of great
help in determining the final structure of the book as well as augmenting,
through his suggestions, the coverage of contemporary poets. I am uniquely
indebted to Timothy Steele, who read the entire manuscript in installments
and offered detailed commentary on it. Every part of the work has benefited
from his vigilance, which prompted me to make many clarifications, addi-
tions, and corrections. As always, I am grateful to my wife, who put up with
much strategizing and helped me through recurrent keyboard crises.
I am grateful also to Nancy Basmajian, whose thoughtful and meticulous
copyediting has made the work more readable.
Two very different poets, both of them my teachers, influenced me in en-
during ways when I was first beginning to write. I cannot write poetry, or
write about it, without before long remembering Robert Fitzgerald and Robert
Lowell with renewed gratitude. And I feel the same in remembering their
friend and colleague, also my teacher, to whom this book is dedicated.
Description:Blank verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter—is familiar to many as the form of Shakespeare’s plays and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Since its first use in English in the sixteenth century, it has provided poets with a powerful and versatile metrical line, enabling the creation of some of the most memo
