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

Blank′ness; Blank′-verse, verse without rhyme, esp. the heroic verse of five feet.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various

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

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

Since the middle of the 17th century, when heroic verse became the typical and for a while almost the solitary form in which serious English poetry was written, its history has known many vicissitudes.

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