What is Blank Verse and How to Write It?

Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular mete, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter.

Christopher Marlowe was the first English author to make full use of the potential of blank verse, and also established it as the dominant verse form for English drama in the age of Elizabeth I and James I. The major achievements in English blank verse were made by William Shakespeare, who wrote much of the content of his plays in unrhymed blank verse.

How to Write Blank Verse

Now you too can write in the style introduced by famous Elizabethan playwrights like Marlowe and Shakespeare.

Step 1:

Find your meter. Blank verse depends on using a certain meter (iambic, trochaic, spondaic) If you haven’t learned your meters, look them up. Lambie is an easy one, it consists of two syllables with the second one stressed, or in layman’s terms, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM.

Step 2:

Find your length. Blank verse is classically written in pentameter, so that there would be five instances of your meter in each line.

Step 3:

Find your theme. It’s pretty difficult to write without a general poetic thesis and if you do it will probably come out sounding like gibberish.

Step 4:

Follow your muse. This critical part of poetry writing is the hardest thing to advise. Either the inspiration comes to you, or it doesn’t. Think about your theme and words that would describe your feelings. Then try to use them in your lines.

Step 5:

Keep the iambic pentameter just the slightest bit off-kilter. Classical examples of blank verse sometimes bend (or break) iambic for a couple of beats, particularly when using the names of places or people, sometimes adding extra syllables.