Blank Verse

“The Room” is written in blank verse, meaning that there is no fixed rhyme scheme. Most of the lines do not rhyme at all, but they all are pentameter lines, meaning that they are made up of five feet, and each foot has two beats to it. Usually, as is common in English, the rhythm of each foot is iambic, or made up of iambs, meaning that the stress in each foot falls on the second beat. But Aiken's use of iambic pentameter is not absolute. Look at the first line for an example of five varied feet (with the capitalization indicating the stress): “through THAT / WINdow / all ELSE / Being / exTINCT.” The second and fourth feet reverse the pattern, giving an emphasis to the words. They are in a meter called trochaic, which is made up of trochees. A trochee is composed of one stressed syllable followed...