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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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blank verse
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Poetry without rhymes, characteristic of the greatest English literature of the 16–17C, particularly in the form of the iambic pentameter – a line of five feet or ten syllables, theoretically stressed on every other syllable but in practice much more fluid. First used in the 1540s, it became the standard line of *Marlowe, of *Shakespeare and of *Milton in his longer poems. Most 18C poets preferred rhymes, but blank verse was much used again in the 19C.
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