Verse

Unlike prose, verse has line-breaks. Prose runs to the right margin; verse does not.

If you incorporate verse quotations into your own prose, indicate each line-break with a slash (/) and retain the initial capitalization:

Satan claims that “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven” (Milton 1.254-55).

If you quote four lines or more, use a block-quotation (indenting ten spaces) and preserve the lineation of the verse exactly; in other words, it has to look on your page just as it looks on the page of your source. If a line is too long for your page, continue the line of poetry on the next line of your page but indent the continuation. Start a new line for the next line of poetry.

In your parenthetical reference, give line numbers (not page numbers).

If you are quoting verse from a play, give act, scene, and line numbers.