heroic couplet
- noun
- /həˈroʊɪk ˈkʌplɪt/
- Literature
:
dístico heroico
- In English literature, the heroic couplet is often used to create a formal and rhythmic quality in poetry.
Examples
-
The poem, "The Missing Link," ends with a short sci-fi fable in heroic couplets.
Fiction book (1993) -
The sweetly flowing tide of romance couplets even had fully formed heroic couplets occasionally decorating them, like candles floating on the water.
Academic text (2012) -
Failing that, I ached to write heroic couplets about academic pregnancy.
Fiction book (1993) -
At about the same time, another acquaintance of Hayley's was also writing heroic couplets.
Academic text (1993) -
For the poet, the heroic couplet is a wickedly difficult frame in which to narrate.
Academic text (2012) -
Heroic couplets are closed, and the closure exerts pressure even when nothing much is being conveyed except atmosphere.
Academic text (2012) -
In these works, she masterfully employed blank verse, free verse, heroic couplets, and irregular rhyme schemes.
Academic text (2016) -
Why would anyone write four cantos and 238 pages of heroic couplets about plants, and why would anyone buy such a work in the late eighteenth century?
Academic text (1993) -
One other contrast between Erasmus and Charles should help us understand why Erasmus's heroic couplets have been forgotten, while Charles's book revolutionized human thought.
Academic text (1993) -
"But really, the heroic couplet had already been practically, if not critically, undone in the day of its domination by poets who wished to keep the rhyme of the couplet but not its self-containment.
Academic text (2012)
Synonyms
4
5.9
Two lines of poetry next to each other that usually rhyme
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'heroic' (elevated, epic) and 'couplet' (a pair of rhymed lines) can infer that a 'heroic couplet' is a kind of couplet with a lofty or epic quality, so the general idea is predictable from the parts. However, the full, technical meaning—specifically the conventional requirement of iambic pentameter and its poetic function—is specialized and not derivable from the constituents alone, making the term only partially transparent to learners without literary knowledge.
Etymology
Heroic couplet may come from old poems about heroes: heroic means 'about heroes' and couplet means 'a pair of lines'. Poets used these strong, rhymed pairs to give a grand, serious finish, so today heroic couplet means a pair of rhymed lines written in a formal or grand style.