Prometheus Unbound

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Prometheus Unbound: Style 1 key example

Act 1
Explanation and Analysis:

Prometheus Unbound is quite stylistically diverse, written as lyric poetry in both blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) and rhymed sequences, often in couplet form. Blank verse is the standard, as is true of most traditional epic poetic dramas. Shelley will often deviate from this standard, however, particularly in passages where members of the chorus or spirits must speak. Take this passage from the first Semichorus towards the end of Act 1:

Drops of bloody agony flow
From his white and quivering brow.
Grant a little respite now—
See! a disenchanted nation
Springs like day from desolation;