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heroic couplet
poetry
- Key People:
- Charles Sackville, 6th earl of Dorset
- Related Topics:
- iambic pentameter
- couplet
heroic couplet, a couplet of rhyming iambic pentameters often forming a distinct rhetorical as well as metrical unit. The origin of the form in English poetry is unknown, but Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century was the first to make extensive use of it. The heroic couplet became the principal metre used in drama about the mid-17th century, and the form was perfected by John Dryden and Alexander Pope in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. An example, from Pope’s “Eloisa to Abelard,” is
Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;
Ah, more than share it, give me all thy grief.