‘The Lady Shall Say Her Mind Freely’: Shakespeare and the S/Pace of Blank Verse

Abstract

Tudeau-Clayton argues that, in line with developments in contemporary rhetoric, Shakespeare conceived of blank verse as ‘spatious’, using it to figure the emancipation of the individual. The form became linked to the early modern discovery of infinity, so that the development of blank verse can be seen as a chapter in the history of modernity. Not following the example of ‘Marlowe’s mighty line’, Shakespeare uses techniques such as enjambment to produce a ‘“plastic” or “malleable” line’ designed to transgress linguistic and physical limits. Resisting linearity and closure, Shakespearean blank verse opens up a space for an individual’s negotiation of infinity—an approach particularly conspicuous in Hamlet, but also to be traced in Juliet’s ‘infinite bounty’.