Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / Unit 18 AIL 1703 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Age of the Couplet
Captions available
The idea
The heroic couplet, two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter, dominated eighteenth-century English verse. Unit eight defined it, the glossary having no headword. Unit sixteen met it in Pope's Homer. The form's closure and balance are the century's taste made audible.
In practice
Two rhyming five-beat lines.
Where people slip
Closure and balance, made audible.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it