Concept
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse". The first known use of blank verse in English was by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in his translation of the Aeneid (composed 1540; published posthumously, 1554–1557). He may have been inspired by the Latin original since classical Latin verse did not use rhyme, or possibly he was inspired by Ancient Greek verse or the Italian verse form of versi sciolti, both of which also did not use rhyme. The play Arden of Faversham (around 1590 by an unknown author) is a notable example of end-stopped blank verse. The 1561 play Gorboduc by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville was the first English play to use blank verse. Christopher Marlowe was the first English author to achieve critical fame for his use of blank verse. The major achievements in English blank verse were made by William Shakespeare, who wrote much of the content of his plays in unrhymed iambic pentameter, and John Milton, whose Paradise Lost is written in blank verse. Miltonic blank verse was widely imitated in the 18th century by such poets as James Thomson (in The Seasons) and William Cowper (in The Task). Romantic English poets such as William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats used blank verse as a major form. Shortly afterwards, Alfred, Lord Tennyson became particularly devoted to blank verse, using it for example in his long narrative poem "The Princess", as well as for one of his most famous poems: "Ulysses". Among American poets, Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are notable for using blank verse in extended compositions at a time when many other poets were turning to free verse. Marlowe and then Shakespeare developed its potential greatly in the late 16th century.
