English Literature / Unit 1 ENL 0017 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Free Verse
Captions available
The idea
Free verse is poetry without a set rhyme scheme or regular meter, following the rhythms of speech. It became a major English form in the twentieth century. If a passage has neither steady meter nor rhyme, it is free verse; steady meter without rhyme is blank verse.
In practice
No fixed meter, no fixed rhyme.
Where people slip
Free does not mean formless.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for English Literature