BLANK VERSE (BASED ON ÁDÁM NÁDASDY, READING SHAKESPEARE) BOLDIZSÁR FEJÉRVÁRI

1 TECHNICAL TERMS
1.1 Metre
Masculine line: last syllable stressed. HENCE:
Masculine rhyme: occurs on stressed syllables, e.g. day / play.
Feminine line: last syllable unstressed. HENCE:
Feminine rhyme: occurs on unstressed syllables, e.g. quiver / shiver.
Decasyllabic line: consists of ten syllables—usual form for iambic pentameter.
Hendecasyllabic line: consists of eleven syllables—in case of an iambic pentameter, this means an extra degenerate foot
(unstressed syllable) at the end of the line.

1.2 Structures of iambic pentameter based on rhyme and metre

Heroic couplet: couplet of two iambic pentameters (cf. Pope, “An Essay on Criticism”).
(i) Closed couplet: the end of the second line coincides with the end of a complete sense unit.
(ii) Open couplet: the end of the train of thoughts does not coincide with the end of the couplet, e.g.:
Experience, though noon auctoritee
Were in this world, is right enough for me ──┐
To speke of woe that is in marriage. ──────┴ lines closely linked together
(Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue”)
Spenserian stanza: consists of nine lines, the first eight being iambic pentameters, and the last one iambic hexameter. Its
rhyme pattern is the following: ABABBCBCC. Cf. Keats, “The Eve of St Agnes.”
Blank verse: iambic pentameters without end rhymes. Cf. Shakespeare’s plays, or Yeats, “The Second Coming.”

2 SPECIAL EFFECTS IN (SHAKESPEAREAN) BLANK VERSE

Caesura: pause (grammatical or semantic boundary) around the middle of the line, mostly after the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable.
Trochaic inversion: trochee used instead of iamb. (Possible: only at the beginning of a line, or after a caesura.)
Choriambic opening: line begins with a combination of trochee+iamb (/ x x / = choriamb in Greek poetry).
Elision: a sound (usually an unstressed vowel) is dropped, if it comes next to another vowel, e.g. the Athenian→th’Athenian;
or elsewhere, e.g. given→giv’n, ranked→rank’d.
Syncope: elision of a short vowel in a medial open unstressed syllable, e.g. withering→with’ring, Helena→Hel’na.
Contraction or compression: joining two vowels (a hiatus) into a diphthong, usually /i/→/j/, e.g. Hermia→“Hermja”.
(Also known as gliding).
Dactylic strengthening: in a word now ending in two unstressed syllables (like a dactyl), the last syllable usually has relative
stress, e.g. énvelòpe. Many such words are of French original, and in French they were end-stressed.
Slur: reduce or “skip” a sound in a word.
Enclitic: unstressed word appended to some stressed word, e.g. find them→find ’em.

3 IDENTIFY THE METRICAL DEVICES IN THE FOLLOWING LINES

Timon hath made his everlasting mansion

Upon the beached verge of the salt flood…

Our towns are copied fragments from our breast;

And all man’s Babylon strive but to impart

The grandeur of his Babylonian heart.

And now methinks I could e’en chide myself

For doating on her beauty, though her death

Shall be revenged after no common action.