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

Holmes, O. W.: Chambered Nautilus, 108*; on heroic couplet, 203 n.

From English Verse Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History by Alden, Raymond MacDonald

This is an absolutely correct example of the heroic couplet, which ultimately reached such majesty in the hands of Dryden and such brilliancy in those of Pope.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 6 "Coucy-le-Château" to "Crocodile" by Various

Yet they strove in the main to follow the gleam in poetry, to reinstate imagination upon its throne, and to substitute the singing voice for the rhetorical recitative of the heroic couplet.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various

The use of the Alexandrine in the heroic couplet, he avers, gives variety and energy.

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