heroic couplet
Pope's verse form
A heroic couplet is a pair of rhyming lines in iambic pentameter, typically forming a complete thought.
The form dominated English poetry in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the work of Dryden and Pope: True wit is nature to advantage dressed, / What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
The "heroic" refers to its use in epic and elevated verse.
- iambicVerse rhythm type
- pentameterFive-foot poetic line
- end rhymeMatching sounds at line endings
- NeoclassicismRevival of ancient aesthetics
- classical styleAncient Greek-Roman aesthetic
rhyme · Augustan age · satire · antithesis · poetic form · quatrain · foot · mock-epic · caesura · wit · Pope · Alexander Pope · epigram · elision · enjambment · formal · Augustan · verse
- literaturebooks, book, fiction, poetry, stories
- literary formsnovel, novels, novella, poetry, poetry collections
- poetrypoem, poems, poetry, verse, verses
- versepoem, stanza, sonnet, rhyme, quatrain
- literary termsmetaphor, character analysis, symbolism, prologue, epilogue
- poetry termspoetry, rhyme, verse, rhythm, meter
heroic coupletblank verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
free verse · prose poetry · prose poem · stream of consciousness · automatic writing
heroic coupletottava rima
Interlocking rhymes, closing couplet
sonnet · villanelle · sestina
hero, heroic, heroism, heroine, heroes, superhero, superheroes, antihero, couplet