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HEROIC VERSE

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Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 386 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HEROIC See also:

VERSE , a See also:term exclusively used in See also:English to indicate the rhymed See also:iambic See also:line or HEROIC See also:COUPLET. In See also:ancient literature, the heroic verse, ripwucov ,Arpov, was synonymous with the dactylic See also:hexameter. It was in this measure that those typically heroic poems, cne Iliad and Odyssey and the Aeneid were written. In English, however, it was not enough to designate a single iambic line of five beats as heroic verse, because it was necessary to distinguish See also:blank verse from the distich, which was formed by the heroic couplet. This had escaped the See also:notice of See also:Dryden, when he wrote " The English Verse, which we See also:call Heroic, consists of no more than ten syllables." If that were the See also:case, then See also:Paradise Lost would be written in heroic verse, which is not true. What Dryden should have said is " consists of two rhymed lines, each of ten syllables." In See also:French the alexandrine has always been regarded as the heroic measure of that See also:language. The dactylic See also:movement of the heroic line in ancient See also:Greek, the famous AvBµbr rtpg5os of See also:Homer, is expressed in See also:modern See also:Europe by the iambic movement. The consequence is that much of the See also:rush and See also:energy of the See also:antique verse, which at vigorous moments was like the See also:charge of a See also:battalion, is lost. It is owing to this, in See also:part, that the heroic couplet is so often required to give, in See also:translation, the full value of a single Homeric hexameter. It is important to insist that it is the couplet, not the single line, which constitutes heroic verse. It is interesting to See also:note that the Latin poet See also:Ennius, as reported by See also:Cicero, called the heroic See also:metre of one line versum longum, to distinguish it from the brevity of lyrical See also:measures. The current See also:form of English heroic verse appears to be the invention of See also:Chaucer, who used it in his See also:Legend of See also:Good See also:Women and afterwards, with still greater freedom, in the See also:Canterbury Tales.

Here is an example of it in its earliest development: " And thus the lone See also:

day in fight they spend, Till, at the last, as everything hath end, Anton is shent, and put him to the See also:flight, And all his folk to go, as best go might." This way of See also:writing was misunderstood and neglected by Chaucer's English disciples, but was followed nearly a See also:century later by the Scottish poet, called See also:Blind Harry (c. 1475), whose See also:Wallace holds an important See also:place in the See also:history of versification as having passed on the tradition of the heroic couplet. Another Scottish poet, Gavin See also:Douglas, selected heroic verse for his translation of the Aeneid (1513), and displayed, in such examples as the following, a skill which See also:left little See also:room for improvement at the hands of later poets: " One sang, ` The See also:ship sails over the See also:salt foam, Will bring the merchants and my leman See also:home' ; Some other sings, ' I will be blithe and See also:light, Mine See also:heart is leant upon so goodly See also:wight.' The verse so successfully mastered was, however, not very generally used for heroic purposes in Tudor literature. The See also:early poets of the revival, and See also:Spenser and See also:Shakespeare after them, greatly preferred stanzaic forms. For dramatic purposes blank verse was almost exclusively used, although the French had adopted the rhymed alexandrine for their plays. In the earlier See also:half of the 17th century, heroic verse was often put to somewhat unheroic purposes, mainly in prologues and epilogues, or other See also:short poems of occasion; but it was nobly redeemed by See also:Marlowe in his See also:Hero and Leander and respectably by See also:Browne in his Britannia's Pastorals. It is to be noted, however, that those Elizabethans who, like See also:Chapman, See also:Warner and See also:Drayton, aimed at producing a warlike and Homeric effect, did so in shambling fourteen-syllable couplets. The one heroic poem of that See also:age written at considerable length in the appropriate See also:national metre is the• See also:Bosworth See also:Field of See also:Sir See also:John See also:Beaumont (1582-1628). Since the See also:middle of the 17th century, when heroic verse became the typical and for a while almost the solitary form in which serious English See also:poetry was written, its history has known many vicissitudes. After having been the See also:principal See also:instrument of Dryden and See also:Pope, it was almost entirely rejected by See also:Wordsworth and See also:Coleridge, but revised, with various modifications, by See also:Byron, See also:Shelley (in See also:Julian and Maddalo) and See also:Keats (in See also:Lamia). In the second half of the 19th century its See also:prestige was restored by the brilliant See also:work of See also:Swinburne in Tristram and elsewhere. (E.

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HEROLD, LOUIS JOSEPH FERDINAND (1791-1833)

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