Blank Verse — Definition, Features, and Examples

Daniel Bal
Written by
Daniel Bal
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Courtney Adamo
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Paul Mazzola

What is blank verse?

Blank verse is a poetic form usually in unrhymed iambic pentameter, but poets can use other metrical patterns. Due to its lack of rhyme yet use of meter, many poets utilize this verse form because it is like normal speech with a musical effect.

Poets and classical playwrights would use blank verse in dramatic monologues and longer narrative poems. Poets believed that the rhythmic pattern would capture readers’ attention, making their work more enjoyable.

Features of blank verse

Blank verse poems contain the following features:

Lines: Blank verse poems can contain any number of lines.

Rhyme Scheme: Poems written in blank verse do not follow a rhyme scheme.

Iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter

Iambic Pentameter: Iambic pentameter is a line of verse containing five metric feet, each of which has one stressed syllable and one unstressed syllable. Iambic identifies how the syllables are stressed (da DUM), while pentameter identifies the number of iambs (penta = five).

Therefore, each metric foot contains two syllables, giving each line of blank verse ten total syllables (5 feet x 2 syllables per foot = 10 syllables).

Consider the following example of blank verse from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet:

Blank verse line example
Line This a- bove all to thine own self be true
Iambic da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM
Syllables 2 2 2 2 2
Metric Feet 1 2 3 4 5

History of blank verse

Blank verse was first introduced to English speakers in the mid-1500s by the Earl of Surrey, Henry Howard, when he translated Virgil’s Aeneid from Latin to English. Playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare helped popularize blank verse in the English language.

18th and 19th century English poets, such as John Keats, William Wordsworth, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, widely used blank verse in their poetry.

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Blank verse vs. free verse

Blank verse and free verse compare in the following ways:

Blank verse vs. free verse
Characteristic Blank Verse Free Verse
Rhyme Scheme unrhymed lines unrhymed lines
Metrical Pattern iambic pentameter no metrical pattern
Usage 16th – 19th-century poets contemporary poets
Example Line When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker trees, / I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
-- “Birches” by Robert Frost
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
-- “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

While both forms are similar in that neither contains a rhyme scheme, free verse does not follow any metrical pattern, whereas blank verse poetry consistently uses iambic pentameter. Free verse is not bound by any specific poetic rules or consistent meter, hence being identified as “free.”

Blank verse examples

The following lines from famous poems and dramatic works employ the use of blank verse:

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats

“Mending Wall” by Robert Frost

“The Idea of Order at Key West” by Wallace Stevens