Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In
fact it has both. It is true that the rhythm of free verse does not come
from metre, from rhyme or from stanza patterns, but it still has a
rhythm obtained from the repetition of words, phrases or grammatical
structures, from parallelisms, from the arrangement of words on the
printed page or from other unconventional techniques. In the following
excerpt from a poem by Walt Whitman, for instance, there is a strong sense
of rhythm although an abstract pattern of regularity cannot be established.
Beat! beat! drums! blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windowsthrough doorsburst like a ruthless
force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
. It allows freedom from conventional forms but requires that a new form be
created for every poem.The poetry of the Bible uses this form extensively
and with the early English translations of the Bible (culminating in the King
James Version of 1611) the form was introduced into English poetry, as
well. The Psalms and The Song of Solomon in the King James Version of
the Bible are, for example, free verse translations. By the mid-1900's, free
verse had become the standard verse form in poetry, especially in the
works of such American poets as Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, and
William Carlos Williams.
the individuality of a poet may often be better expressed in free
verse than in conventional forms. walt Whitman. His verse
characterized by long lines and extended rhythmical patterns
emlployeing frequent parallelism to correspond inclusive subject
matter.
(image is the poems reason for existence )
Perhaps most telling of all is Eliots 1917 essay Reflections
on Vers Libre.
Hdi_I&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBzgUahUKEwjS6ezSisDIAhV
BjywKHd3iBYk#v=onepage&q=free%20verse%20in
%20america&f=false j T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos
Williams) who saw the open form as allowing for the more nimble
representation of a modern fragmented and accelerated world.