Versus blancus

Pagina titularis Vergilii operum a Roberto Andrews e lingua Latina in versibus blancis Anglicis conversorum et a Ioanne Baskerville anno 1766 impressorum.

Versus blancus (Anglice blank verse; Francogallice vers blanc) est species versus soluti—i.e. versus sine assonantia finali seu rima, tametsi quoddam metrum quod rimas solet adhibere sequitur—atque versus solutus per antonomasiam in poësi Anglica. Versus blancus e pentametris iambicis consistit (comparetur cum hendecasyllabo versūs soluti poesis Italicae, vulgo verso sciolto). Eo primum usus est Henricus Howard, Comes Surreyensis, in sua versione Aeneidos librorum II et IV (circa anno 1540 composita; 1554–1557 edita.) Howard fortasse a hexametro Vergiliano eum traxit, quia versus Latinus classicus sine rima est; vel fortasse a hendecasyllabo soluto Italico sumpsit, qui etiam nullam clausulam consonantem tenet.

Appellatus est "probabiliter communissima et potentissima poesis Anglicae forma ex saeculo sexto decimo," et Paulus Fussell aestimavit "circiter dodrantem totius poesis Anglicae esse versibus blancis scriptum".

Gorboduc est prima tragoedia (1561 acta, 1565 edita) versibus blancis Anglicis scripta a Thoma Norton et Thoma Sackville. Christophorus Marlovius primus versum blancum auxit in suis dramatibus, velut in Doctore Fausto (circa 1592 acto, 1604 edito). Maxima in versibus blancis Anglicis opera a Gulielmo Shakesperio facta sunt, qui multum quod in suis ludis continetur in pentametro iambico sine rima composuit, et ab Ioanne Miltono, cuius Paradisus amissus versibus blancis compositus est. Iacobus Thomson (in The Seasons), Gulielmus Cowper (in The Task), et poetae similies versus solutos Miltonicos saeculo duodevicensimo late imitati sunt. Romantici poetae Anglici sicut Gulielmus Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, et Ioannes Keats versu blanco usi sunt pro forma maiore. Mox Alfredus Tennyson versui blanco vehementer studebat, quo usus est, exempli gratia, in "The Princess," suo poemate narrativo, atque in "Ulysses," uno ex suis poematibus latissime lectis. Inter poetas Americanos, Hart Crane et Wallace Stevens versu soluto insigniter usi sunt in compositionibus extensis cum multi poetae alii se in versum liberum dedicarent.

Historia versus blanci Anglici

Marlovius et postea Shakesperius vim ac robur versus blanci magnopere saeculo sexto decimo exeunte evolverunt. Marlovius versu blanco in dramate usus est, tali modo:

You stars that reign'd at my nativity,

Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,

Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist

Into entrails of yon labouring clouds,

That when they vomit forth into the air,

My limbs may issue from their smoky mouths,

So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven.

(Doctor Faustus)

Shakesperius facultatem versus soluti auxit. Exempli gratia, in hoc diverbio fabulae historicae, quae inscribitur King John, unus versus inter duas personas frangitur:

My lord?

A grave.

He shall not live.

Enough.

Domine?

Sepulcrum.

Non vivet.

Satis.

(King John, 3.3)

Shakespeare etiam imbricatione magis atque magis in suis versibus usus est, et in suis ludis ultimis finibus femineis uti solebat (in quibus ultima syllaba cuiusque lineae vi caret, ut in versibus tertio et quinto exempli sequentis); quod omnino fecit ut suus versus blancus recentem esset flexibilis, expolitus, floridissimus, sic:

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and fly him

When he comes back; you demi-puppets that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make

Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,

Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimmed

The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,

And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault

Set roaring war—to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak

With his own bolt. . . .

(The Tempest, 5.1)

Aequaevi Shakespereani hanc liberissimam versus blanci tractationem imitati sunt, quod ad remissionem metricam generalem a poetis minus sollertibus duxit. Ludus Arden of Faversham (circa 1590 ab auctore ignoto) est notabile versus blanci exemplum. Versus blancus autem Shakespereanus a Ioanne Webster et Thoma Middleton in eorum ludis feliciter adhibitus est. Beniaminus Jonson interdum versu blanco strictiore, minore imbricatione adhibito, in Volpone et The Alchemist suis comoediis magnis, usus est.

Versus blancus in poesi non dramatica saeculi septimi decimi usque ad Paradisum amissum haud maxime adhibitum est, epico in quo Miltonus eo licentia et sollertia usus est. Milton quidem facilitate per quam versus blancus multiplicitatem syntacticam maxime sustinere potest usus est in locis ut hic:

[…] into what Pit thou seest

From what highth fal'n, so much the stronger provd

He with his Thunder: and till then who knew

The force of those dire Arms? yet not for those

Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage

Can else inflict do I repent or change,

Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mind

And high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit,

That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend,

And to the fierce contention brought along

Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd

That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,

His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd

In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield

(Paradisus amissus, I, 91–108)

Milton praeterea Paradise Regained et partes Samsonis Agonistis in versu blanco composuit.

Saeculo post Miltonum erant pauci versus blanci dramatici aut non dramatici usus insignes; pro desiderio constantiae, plurimum versus blancus illius temporis est aliquantum frigidus. Optima illius temporis exempla probabiliter sunt All for Love tragoedia Ioannis Dryden et The Seasons Iacobi Thomson. Exemplum notabile tam pro offensione publica quam pro gratia formali est The Fleece Ioannis Dyer.

Saeculo duodevicensimo exeunte, Gulielmus Cowper redintegrationem versus blanci coepit in "The Task" ('Opus'), volumine meditationum efferatiorum, anno 1784 prolatum. Post Shakesperium et Miltonum, Cowper maxime valuit apud proximam aetatem maiorum poetarum qui versu blanco usi fuerint, iuvenes cum Cowper suum magnum opus edidit. Qui Poetae Lacuum appellati sunt, praecipue Gulielmus Wordsworth et Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth genus usus est in multis ex Lyrical Ballads (1798 et 1800), atque in The Prelude et The Excursion, suis conatibus longissimis. Versus Wordsworthianus aliquantulum libertatis Miltoni recuperavit, sed multo iustior generatim est:

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! And again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs...

(Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, versus 1–5)

Versus blancus Coleridgeanus elegantior est quam versus blancus Wordsworthianus, sed paululum composuit:

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,

This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost

Beauties and feelings, such as would have been

Most sweet to my remembrance even when age

had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile. . . .

(This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, lines 1–5)

Sua opera poemata sermonis appellata, sicut "The Aeolian Harp" et "Frost at Midnight" sunt optime nota ex suis operibus in versu blanco conceptis. Ioannis Keats versus blancus in Hyperion praecipue ex eo Miltoni adumbratur, sed minus liber se in pentametrum gerit et pulchritudines proprias ipsius Keats ostendit. Versus blancus Shelleyanus in The Cenci et Prometheus Unbound similius est usus Elizabethani quam Miltoniani.

Ex numero scriptorum Victorianorum, qui versu blanco uti solebant, notissimi sunt Alfredus Tennyson et Robertus Browning. Versus blancus Tennysonianus in poematibus sicut Ulysses (1833) et The Princess (1847) est musicus et strictus; in posterioris poematis cantu IV carmen, quod verbis incipit Tears, Idle Tears, dicitur primum exemplum magnum in pentastichis versuum blancorum scriptum. Usus Browningianus in poemate, quod inscribitur Fra Lippo Lippi (1855), et similibus est abruptior, quasi in colloquio usitatus. Item Princess Ida (1884), opus a Gulielmo S. Gilbert scriptum et ab Arcturo Sullivan musicis notis expressum, quod The Princess subiecit, diverbia omnia in versibus blancis continet. Ecce locus actus II, in quo Principissa Ida ariam cantat:

Women of Adamant, fair neophytes—

Who thirst for such instruction as we give,

Attend, while I unfold a parable.

The elephant is mightier than Man,

Yet Man subdues him. Why? The elephant

Is elephantine everywhere but here (tapping her forehead)

And Man, whose brain is to the elephant’s

As Woman’s brain to Man’s—(that’s rule of three),—

Conquers the foolish giant of the woods,

As Woman, in her turn, shall conquer Man.

In Mathematics, Woman leads the way:

The narrow-minded pedant still believes

That two and two make four! Why, we can prove,

We women—household drudges as we are—

That two and two make five—or three—or seven;

Or five-and-twenty, if the case demands!

Versus blancus pervarius saepissime saeculo XX in carminibus poematibusque adhibitus est. Multa opera poetica Roberti Frost in versu blanco concepta sunt; pariter alia magna, sicut Wallace Stevens auctoris The Comedian as the Letter C (1923) et The Idea of Order at Key West (1934), Gulielmi Butler Yeats The Second Coming (1920), Wystani Hugonis Auden The Watershed (1927) et Ioannis Betjeman Summoned by Bells (1960). Praeterea, Glory for Me (1945), novella a MacKinlay Kantor auctore prolata, certamina veteranorum Belli Orbis Terrarum II redientium versibus blancis enarrat, quae subiecit The Best Years of Our Lives pelliculam. Index exhauriri non potest, quia versus solutus fundamentum poesis lyricae est, at hodiernus tam praestans quam in prioribus quadringentis annis profecto est.

Nexus interni

• Versus
• Versus liber
• Decasyllabus

Bibliographia

• Deutsch, Babette. 1974. Poetry Handbook. Ed. quarta.
• Shaw, Robert Burns. 2007. Blank Verse: A Guide to its History and Use. Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780821417577, ISBN 0821417576.

Nexus externi

• Blank Verse, olim apud Universitatis Victoriae situm