Blank Verse, Caesura, Catastrophe

Blank Verse: 

Iambic pentameter verse lines without rhyme at the end. An iambic pentameter line is a verse line of five iambic feet. In blank verse, the last word of a line does not rhyme with the last word of any of the successive lines. 

Examples: ; How can /I live / without / thee? how/ forego/ 

Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join’d, 

To live again in these wild woods forlorn? Should God create another Eve, and I Another rib afford, yet loss of thee 

Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel The link of nature draw me; flesh of flesh, Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state 

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe. (Milton: Paradise Lost, Book IX) 

All these lines, like the scanned one, are in iambic pentameter and none of the last words of these lines rhyme with any other end-word, 

More Examples: 

Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, 

And burnt the topless towers of Ileum? 

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss, 

Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies! 

(Marlowe: Doctor Faustus, Act, V, Scene 

These mighty lines are written in iambic pentameter without end rhyme. 

It little profits that an idle king, . 

By this still hearth, among these barren crags, 

Match’d with an aged wife, | mete and dole 

Unequal laws unto a savage race, 

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 

(Tennyson: “Ulysses”) 

Poets and dramatists use blank verse to avoid the monotony of traditional rhyme schemes, to use a wide variety of differing tones, to add elegance and to match the heroic or elevated voice. 

[see lamb; Foot; Heroic Couplet] 

Caesura: 

A break or pause in the rhythmic progression in a verse line. It is indicated by the mark “|” as is shown in the following examples: 

The boast of heraldry, || the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, || all that wealth e’er gave, . 

(Gray: “Elegy”) 

Where are the songs of Spring? || Ay, where are they? 

Think not of them, || thou hast thy music too,-

(Keats: “To Autumn”) 

In friendship false, || implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin || or to rule the state; (Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel) 

“To err is human, || to forgive divine.” 

(Pope: An Essay on Criticism) 

Caesura is used to bring variety in the natural rhythm. It also | produces metrical subtlety and makes meanings sharp and distinct. 

Catastrophe: 

Catastrophe is the dreadful consequence of the story of a tragedy. It is the final scene in which the action ends with the death of the hero and other characters, Catastrophe takes place in the last scene of Doctor Faustus in which Faustus begs for God’s forgiveness but  Lucifer drags him to hell. In Othello it occurs when Othello kifB Desdemona and then kills himself. The catastrophe of Hamlet is + the death scene of Hamlet (the hero), Gertrude (the Queen), Claudius (the present king) and Laertes. 

Categories: English Literature