heroic verse

American  

noun

1. a form of verse adapted to the treatment of heroic or exalted themes: in classical poetry, dactylic hexameter; in English and German, iambic pentameter; and in French, the Alexandrine. An example of heroic verse is

   Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring / Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing!

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heroic verse British  

noun

1. prosody a type of verse suitable for epic or heroic subjects, such as the classical hexameter, the French Alexandrine, or the English iambic pentameter

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Etymology

Origin of heroic verse

First recorded in 1610–20

Example Sentences

Of course, Lipsyte doesn’t provide a single word of of this life-changing, ruthless, heroic verse.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 11, 2019

Schipper relegates to a foot-note the suggestion that our heroic verse may have originated in a different way, either through an abridgment of the alexandrine or through an extension of the four-foot line.

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

The current form of English heroic verse appears to be the invention of Chaucer, who used it in his Legend of Good Women and afterwards, with still greater freedom, in the Canterbury Tales.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 4 "Hero" to "Hindu Chronology" by Various

Enjambement, 19: avoidance of in heroic verse, 187, 202; in Chaucer, 177; in couplets of the romantic poets, 208-212; in Milton, 233; in Shakspere's verse, 223.

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

It is partly in rhymed heroic verse, like the stilted tragedies of the Howards and Killigrews, but it contains comic scenes that are exceedingly bright and fresh.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 7 "Equation" to "Ethics" by Various