Heroic Couplet, What is heroic couplet ?

A Heroic Couplet is a traditional form of English verse widely used in epic and narrative poetry, consisting of pairs of rhyming lines written in iambic pentameter. Each line contains ten syllables with an alternating rhythm of unstressed and stressed beats. The pair is typically "closed," meaning the grammatical structure and the thought are completed within the two lines rather than running over into the next. This structure creates a strong sense of balance, clarity, and finality in the verse.

This makes it an ideal vehicle for the witty, logical, and satirical poetry of the Augustan age. First popularized by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales, the form reached its perfection in the 17th and 18th centuries under John Dryden and Alexander Pope. They utilized its snappy, epigrammatic quality to deliver sharp insults and memorable moral truths, as seen in Pope’s famous definition: "True wit is nature to advantage dressed, / What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."