heroic couplet

American  

noun

Prosody.

1. a stanza consisting of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter, especially one forming a rhetorical unit and written in an elevated style, as, Know then thyself, presume not God to scan / The proper study of Mankind is Man.

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heroic couplet British  

noun

1. prosody a verse form consisting of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter

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Etymology

Origin of heroic couplet

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

At the approach of the 18th century, John Dryden offered Virgil as a master of the heroic couplet: "Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,/ And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate."

From Time Magazine Archive

Commonwealth and Restoration Poets, use of the heroic couplet by, with illustrations, 102 et sqq.

From Life of John Keats His Life and Poetry, his Friends, Critics and After-fame by Colvin, Sidney

He writes in the heroic couplet, which he manœuvres with great ease and smoothness.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 7 "Gyantse" to "Hallel" by Various

The "Fragments of College Exercises" show a futile attempt to wield the heroic couplet with sonorous rhetoric.

From Thomas Moore by Gwynn, Stephen Lucius

Keats, following the lead of Hunt, used the free heroic couplet in several of the 1817 poems with a license even greater than Hunt’s.

From Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats by Miller, Barnette