Comment on Marlowe's Use of Blank Verse.

Blank verse refers to unrhymed verse, particularly that form of unrhymed heroic verse which is commonly employed in English dramatic and epic poetry. Blank verse can be composed in any meter and with any amount of feet per line (any line length), though the iamb is generally the predominant foot. Along with the iamb there are 3 other standard feet and a number of variations that can be employed in a blank verse poem. It is difficult--almost impossible--to write a blank verse poem consisting of all iambs and other types of feet get used more often than one may think. These are: 

 

Iamb — two syllables, unstressed-stressed

Trochee — two syllables, stressed-unstressed

Anapest — three syllables, unstressed-unstressed-stressed 

Dactyl — three syllables and stressed-unstressed-unstressed Variations include:

Headless Iamb or Tailless Trochee — one stressed syllable.

Spondee - two stressed syllables

Amphibrach - three syllables, unstressed-stressed-unstressed Double Iamb - four syllables, unstressed-unstressed, stressed-stressed. A double iamb is counted as two feet. 

 

Blank verse can be written with any combination of the above feet. It was developed in Italy and became widely used during the Renaissance because it resembled classical, unrhymed poetry. It was first used in English by Surrey in his translation of Virgil's Aeneid; and in drama it was first used by Sackville and Norton in Gorboduc, the first English tragedy, later becoming the standard verse form of the Elizabethan theater.

 

Marlowe's Use of Blank Verse:

 

Marlowe was the real creator of the most versatile of English measures. Sackville, Norton and Surrey experimented with the blank verse more than twenty years before Marlowe. They failed because they worked on wrong principles and the results which they produced were of an intolerable tedious monotony. Marlowe infuses new blood and enlivens the blank verse of his predecessors with astounding vigour, variety and rhythm. He brought about the element of resonance in his mighty lines or blank verse. He avoided rhythm but wrote so melodiously that his lines had the effect of rhyme. The most beautiful examples of Marlowe's mighty lines are in the two passages which give immortality to Faustus's passion and despair. The first is Faustus's address to Helen, the paragon of beauty: "Sweet Helen makes me immortal with a kiss..." He expresses his despair in lines that can hardly be excelled by any other dramatist: 

 

"Faustus's offence can ne'er be pardoned. The serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus."

 

The final monologue is the most striking specimen of blank verse. It is emotional passages which illustrate Marlowe's highest achievement as a writer of blank verse.

 

"O, I'll leap up to my God!- who pulls meme down?... stretches out his arms".