words from the ’80s (the 1580s)

Two of my scholarly notes have been accepted for publication in Notes and Queries: “Antedatings of ‘the Dark Ages’” and “The First Recorded References to ‘Blank Verse’.”

These notes discuss the earliest instances of these phrases known to me, in both cases from the 1580s and in both cases predating the earliest quotation given in the corresponding Oxford English Dictionary entry. The notes go on to discuss the historical significance of the terms.

These lexicographical studies grew out of research for my second book project, tentatively titled Meter and Modernity in English Verse, 1350-1650. I became interested in the history of technical terms for historical periods and metrical forms, especially when the emergence of the terms is belated in comparison with what they describe.