<P> This neglect then of Rhime...is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover'd to heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing . </P> <P> This pursuit of freedom was largely a reaction against conservative values entrenched within the rigid heroic couplet . Within a dominant culture that stressed elegance and finish, he granted primacy to freedom, breadth and imaginative suggestiveness, eventually developed into the romantic vision of sublime terror . Reaction to Milton's poetic worldview included, grudgingly, acknowledgement that of poet's resemblance to classical writers (Greek and Roman poetry being unrhymed). Blank verse came to be a recognised medium for religious works and for translations of the classics . Unrhymed lyrics like Collins' Ode to Evening (in the meter of Milton's translation of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha) were not uncommon after 1740 . </P> <P> A second aspect of Milton's blank verse was the use of unconventional rhythm: </P> <P> His blank - verse paragraph, and his audacious and victorious attempt to combine blank and rhymed verse with paragraphic effect in Lycidas, lay down indestructible models and patterns of English verse - rhythm, as distinguished from the narrower and more strait - laced forms of English metre . </P>

Comment on the influence of milton on the english language