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elegiac couplet

British  

noun

  1. classical prosody a couplet composed of a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic pentameter

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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The elegiac couplet had, of course, been in use at Rome long before; Ennius himself had employed it, and in the Ciceronian age Catullus had written in it largely, and not without success.

From Latin Literature by J. W. (John William) Mackail

Tate's little treatise on the elegiac couplet correctly analyses the formal side of Ovid's versification.

From The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius by Charles Thomas Cruttwell

He also brought in the elegiac couplet, which was to attain perfection at the hands of Propertius and Ovid.

From The New Gresham Encyclopedia Volume 4, Part 2: Ebert to Estremadura by Various

The professor told me that in his opinion the best elegiac couplet ever written in English was: "Three Patagonian apes with their arms extended akimbo: Three on a rock were they—seedy, but happy withal."

From A New Medley of Memories by David Hunter-Blair

Apart from his single tragedy, from a few didactic or mock-didactic pieces, imitated from Alexandrian originals, and from his great poem of the Metamorphoses, the whole of Ovid's work was executed in the elegiac couplet.

From Latin Literature by J. W. (John William) Mackail

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