Bridges' Analysis of Paradise Lost - Bridges' Approach

Bridges' Approach

Bridges takes an empirical approach to his analysis of the blank verse of Paradise Lost, and tabulates all the exceptions to the regular iambic pentameter line, although he avoids this classical description of the line, preferring to describe it as a 'decasyllabic line on a disyllabic basis and in rising rhythm (i.e. with accents or stresses on the alternate even syllables)'. He categorizes the exceptions into three groups, citing lines where:

1. the number of syllables is not ten
2. the number of stresses is not five
3. the position of the stresses is not standard