The Heroic Couplet
STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Examples are from Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock.1. Heroic couplets are rhymed iambic pentameter:
~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /
~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / What dire/ Of fence / from am'/ rous Caus/ es Springs Waht migh/ ty Con/ tests rise/ from tri/ vial Things. I, 1-2 The accent or stress pattern (~ / ) may vary (slightly or greatly). Such variation is worth noticing:
~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / Some se/ cret truths // from Learn/ ed Pride/ concealed, ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / To maids/ alone // and chil/ dren are/ revealed. I, 37-8
~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / What ten/ der maid // but must/ a vic/ tim fall ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / To one/ man's Treat, // but for/ ano/ ther's ball? I, 95-6
~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / A Heav'/ nly I //
mage in/ the glass/ appears ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / To that/ she bends, // to that/ her eyes/ she rears I, 125-6
When this regular pattern is followed, the first half of the line has four syllables altogether, two of them accented; the second half has six syllables, three of them accented. The second half of the line is therefore potentially more emphatic.
Variations:
When the midline pause occurs after the 5th syllable, the line's emphasis is equally shared by the 2 halves.
When the midline pause occurs after the 6th syllable, the first half of the line is more emphatic.
Look for examples.
3. Pauses at the end of the first line of a couplet are often strong even when the first line is not actually a full sentence.
The first line of a couplet usually "holds its own" to some degree (has a certain stability) and, at the same time, the first line works with, and is completed by, the second line. (Question to ask: What does the second line "do" to the first?)
--Stability of the line is created in a number of ways--
a) by grammatical completeness or apparent completeness:
1) Here files of Pins extend their shining rows,
Puffs, powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux
2) Now awful Beauty puts on all its Arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms.
Sometimes several lines do the work of the 2nd line of the couplet.
Read the couplet above "Now awful Beauty . . ." and see how it is modified by the 4 lines that follow.
Repairs her Smiles, awakens ev'ry Grace,
And calls forth all the Wonders of her Face;
Sees by Degrees a purer Blush arise,
And keener Lightnings quicken in her Eyes (l. 137-44)
b) or by inversion of ordinary word order (especially subject/verb/object-complement order):
But when to Mischief Mortals bend their Will,
How soon they find fit Instruments of Ill! (III, 126-7).c) Sometimes the first line sets up two balanced elements that are obviously incomplete and the second line completes them and provides the stability for the couplet:
4. The second line elaborates and often significantly modifies the meaning of the first:
****Every first line of a couplet, then, both holds its own to some degree and at the same time works with the second line:
And now, unveil'd, the Toilet stands displa'd,
Each silver Vase in mystic order laid. (I, 121-2).Here thou, great ANNA! whom three realms obey,
Doest sometimes counsel take--and sometimes Tea. (III, 7-8).
5. Chiasmus (derived from chaismos, which means placing crosswise ) is a balanced arrangement of the four basic line elements of a couplet.
A B
The hungry judges // soon the sentence sign
B* A*
And wretches hang // that jury-men may dine. (III, 21-2).
6. Zeugma (literal meaning = yoke) is a figure of speech in which one word (often a verb or an adjective) is yoked (through syntax) with two words: one verb with two subjects, one adjective with two nouns. This figure of speech often creates a sense of comic junction or ironic disjunction.
Whether the Nymph shall break Diana's Law,
Or some frail China Jar receive a Flaw,
Or stain her Honour, or her new Brocade,
Forget her Pray'rs, or miss a Masquerade,
Or lose her Heart, or Necklace, at a Ball
Or whether Heav'n has doom'd that Shock must fall. (II, 105-10)Here thou, great ANNA! whom three realms obey,
Doest sometimes counsel take--and sometimes Tea. (III, 7-8).Not louder Shrieks to pitying Heav'n are cast,
When Husbands or when Lap-dogs breath their last, (III, 157-8).
7. Parallelism/antithesis:
The heroic couplet is suited to the task of stressing similarities and differences: of balancing essentially conflicting elements or of making distinctions between apparently similar elements.
8. Couplet "mechanics" may be "spread" over several lines, creating verse paragraphs or longer analytical units.
9. Variation of regular patterns: All regular features--e.g., stress pattern, position of mid-line pause--can be varied in order to work in various ways against the reader's expectation.
References:
Wallace C. Brown, The Triumph of Form.
William Bowman Piper, The Heroic Couplet.
Ruth C. Wallerstein, "Development of the Rhetoric and Metre of the Heroic Couplet, Especially in 1625-45. PMLA, March 1935, pp. 166-209.
George Williamson, "The Rhetorical Pattern of Neo-classical Wit," Modern Philology, vol. 33, August 1935, 55-81.
Online information sources:
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Scansion But Were Afraid To Ask