Question

Read the excerpt from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

This excerpt is an example of...
A. heroic couplet.
B. free verse.
C. blank verse.
D. common meter.

Answer 1

The given excerpt is an example of Option C: Blank verse

Step-by-step explanation:

Blank verse is the poem that is written in 'iambic pentameter' but has no rhyme. It will have 10 syllables in each line (pentameter) with 5 stressed and 5 unstressed syllables like an iambic pentameter. But there will be no rhyme in the poem.

This is not a free verse, Option B because it has iambic pentameter. Free verse poem has no rhyme and no meter. It has line breaks as well.

William Shakespeare mostly uses blank verse in his poems.