BLANK VERSE

unrhymed iambic pentameter verse is so called, because of the absence of rhyme: ‘So all day long the noise of battle roll’d Among the mountains by the winter sea.’ The same verse in rhymed couplets is called ‘heroic verse,’ and is used, for instance, in Pope’s Homer. If the rhymes are alternate, as in Gray’s Elegy, the form is known as ‘elegiac verse.’ ‘Blank verse’ was employed as far back as the X. cent., but, in Eng. lit., it was ruserved for Marlowe to throw off the shackles of rhyme, and in Shakespeare, his immediate follower, it was brought to a high state of perfection, and has since been regarded as the most suitable medium for the noblest kinds of poetry.