Question: Discuss the characteristics of Milton's blank verse.
Or, What do you mean by verse paragraph? How does the verse paragraph add to the grandeur of Paradise Lost as an epic?
Answer: Blank verse is a kind of verse without rhyme, especially the iambic pentameter or unrhymed heroic line. Milton calls it English 'heroic verse'. A blank verse line can be read properly only when we regard it based on a normal pattern of ten syllables with five stresses in a rising rhythm. In such a case, the stresses fall on the even syllables as in the following two lines:
"At ónce as fár as ángels ken he views
The dismal sítuátion wáste and wild".
Blank verse has a peculiar advantage in its liberty to attend the imagination of the poet in its boldest flights. There is a musical pause at the end of every line as in the rhymed verse, but this pause is so slight that it does not require a pause in the sense. Accordingly, the sense is carried on with or without pauses, till a period of the utmost extent is completed by a full close both in the sense and the sound. The most important characteristic of Milton's blank verse is his use of verse paragraphs. Milton discards rhyme as the jingling sound of like endings. He affirms that musical delight consists in apt numbers, the fit quantity of syllables, and the sense drawn out variously creates a rhythm of the dramatic speech that is played off against the set rhythm of the iambic pentameter line. In an extraordinary way, Milton's verse gives the impression of reconciling freedom and order, spontaneity and perfect control. It was inevitable that such verse should abandon fixed stanzas and articulate itself in terms of paragraphs of varying length. Milton's greatest contribution to the art of English poetry is verse-paragraph. It is the period, the sentence and the paragraph that is the unit of Milton's verse. In this kind of verse - paragraph the sense is suspended through line after line and by avoiding the coincidence of the rhetorical pauses with the line. But the poet succeeded in giving the continuity of rhythm to his blank verse which enabled him to construct verse-paragraph. A perfect and unique pattern is given to each paragraph and the beauty of a line lies in its proper context.
Milton is an innovator as well as a master of Prosody. On a casual reading of Paradise Lost, it appears that its blank verse is lacking variety but if we read it aloud and carefully, we will observe that Milton introduces variety into his blank verse by the placing of caesura (natural pauses that occur in the middle of a line) in a continually different manner. It may come even after the first syllable; the weight of caesura varies like its position. However, we may classify Milton's metrical theory in the following way:
(i) Basic Rhythm: The standard of Milton's verse in Paradise Lost may be taken as the line of ten syllables and fine accents in rising rhythm (i.e. iambic pentameter unrhymed)
(a) Torments him; round he throws his báleful éyes (Book-I, 56)
(b) United thought and counsels eqúal hópe (Book – I, 88)
However, lines with such even and regular iambic beats are comparatively rare. Yet a majority of lines approximate so closely that we are unconscious of variations.
(ii) Variation in the number of syllables: Unlike the eighteenth-century writers of the couplet, Milton is free in the admission of additional syllables. In a considerable number of his lines, we find one or two extra syllables at the end.
De.g. And high disdain from sénse of injured mérit.
(iii) Variation in the placing of Accent (Inversion of Rhythm): The iambic succession of unaccented–accented syllables occurs if freely varied, commonly at the beginning of the line:
"Rose out of chaós or if Síon Hill." (Bk. I-10)
(iv) Pause: The normal pentametre line tends to divide itself into two balancing parts. But like other poets, Milton varies the position of the break to avoid monotony. e.g. Regions of sorrow,/doleful shades/ where peace (Bk-1.65)
Metrical pause in Milton, as determined by a grammatical pause, may come at any point within the line. There are, sometimes, two breaks in a line as in the line above. Pause is a means both of logical expression and of emphasis. It is a factor, partly metrical, partly grammatical and rhetorical. There is evidence of the fact that in spite of thinking in verse paragraphs, Milton regards the line as a more or less isolated unit to be indicated as such by some sort of breath, pause or lingering at the end.
(v) Phrasing: Like other poets, Milton also presents the problem of phrasing or the grouping of syllables into units of pronunciation. Pause, stress and tempo are all factors here. The phrasal units may sometimes correspond more or less exactly to the metrical feet, as in the monosyllabic line;
e.g. And swims/or sínks/or wádes/or créeps/or flies.
The phrasal units often do not correspond as in the following line.
"Of Mán's/First Dis/obe/díence and/the Frúit/
By scanning we may say that "Of Man's" is an iamb, but "first dis" is a trochee. But the reader feels the iambic beat and thus we may mark Milton's variations in accents.
To sum up, all kinds of verses have sounds of their own. The blank verse comes nearest to prose, and as the prose of some writers appears to be verse, Milton's blank verse in Paradise Lost has the beauty of both. However, the musical quality of Milton's blank verse is something unique and it can be felt best by a proper recitation of the lines.
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