Blank verse

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Blank verse is the English term for unrhymed verse, usually applied to the iambic pentameter. Probably first used by the Tudor poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), in a translation of the second book of Virgil's Aeneid.

Some of the greatest works of English poetry have been written in this medium: Paradise Lost, The Prelude, and The Ring and the Book. It has also been much used in drama.