American Literature / Unit 10 AML 0907 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Free Verse: What Whitman Made Possible
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The idea
Whitman abandoned meter and rhyme for a line measured by phrase and breath, giving American poetry the option it has used since. Free verse is not formlessness: his lines are organized by parallel grammar and a rhythm owed partly to the King James Bible.
In practice
Form by grammar and breath, not by feet.
Where people slip
Free verse is organized; it is not unshaped.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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