The Fetters of Rhyme

How rhyme became entangled with debates about the nature of liberty in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English poetry In his 1668 preface to Paradise Lost , John Milton rejected the use of rhyme, portraying himself as a revolutionary freeing English verse from “the troublesome and modern bondage of Riming.” Despite his claim to be a pioneer, Milton was not initiating a new line of thought—English poets had been debating about rhyme and its connections to liberty, freedom, and constraint since