The Tamer Tamed - blank verse?

[missprymmm]

Hello!
I've looked for any similar thread, and even though there are a few, this one is not about creative writing, so I decided to start a new thread.
I am working on my dissertation about John Fletcher's Jacobean play called The Tamer Tamed, which is meant to be a sequel to The Taming of the Shrew. Now, since I'm not a native speaker, I find it really really difficult to recognize blank verses and, thus, iambic pentameter. I mean, in theory I can (five couples of unstressed-stressed syllables > de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum), but in actual fact I cannot. Can anyone who has read the play tell me if the Tamer is blank-versed? Or, alternatively, I could copy&paste some lines here, if I'm allowed to.

ex.
Swear as you hate Moroso, that's the surest,
And as you have a Christian fear to find him
Worse than a poor dried Jack, full of more aches
Than autumn has, more knavery, and usury,
And foolery, and brokery than Dogs' Ditch

and so on and so forth...

Can anyone help me, please? Thank you in advance.:angel:

[ennison]

Well it looks like it. No rhyme. The lines are not all ten syllables so it is not in regular iambic but then it only has to have the predominant rhythm in that to be described in that way. Being a Highland Scot my English accent is different from any English person and most Southern Scots. It would definitely be different to Mr Fletcher. I would say "surest" as a two syllable word for example but it is possible to elide it to one syllable - which is perhaps either what Fletcher wanted or how he would have pronounced it anyway. Even allowing for that kind of difference this is not smooth iambic pentameter but the sense does not demand smoothness here. Nor does the definition of blank verse require constancy.

[missprymmm]

Well it looks like it. No rhyme. The lines are not all ten syllables so it is not in regular iambic but then it only has to have the predominant rhythm in that to be described in that way. Being a Highland Scot my English accent is different from any English person and most Southern Scots. It would definitely be different to Mr Fletcher. I would say "surest" as a two syllable word for example but it is possible to elide it to one syllable - which is perhaps either what Fletcher wanted or how he would have pronounced it anyway. Even allowing for that kind of difference this is not smooth iambic pentameter but the sense does not demand smoothness here. Nor does the definition of blank verse require constancy.

Thank you! You've been very helpful :)