heroic verse
heroic verse — noun
1. A metrical line of six feet used in the epic poetry of ancient Greece and Rome,
A metrical line of six feet used in the epic poetry of ancient Greece and Rome, in which each foot typically follows a stressed–unstressed–unstressed rhythm but may substitute a foot of two stressed syllables.
Ayesha recited twelve lines of heroic verse from the Aeneid in her seminar.
heroic verse + from [classical epic title]
Across the long afternoon, Gabriel scanned the heroic verse of the Odyssey for irregular feet.
scanning heroic verse — collocation for metrical analysis
Kemi abandoned strict heroic verse and rendered the Aeneid's lines as loose English blank verse.
In her classical poetry class, Ingrid taught the rhythm of heroic verse using wooden blocks.
Hyun stood at the whiteboard and wrote a line of Virgil's heroic verse beside a line of Homer's looser metre.
comparing Virgil's and Homer's heroic verse side by side
- scan heroic verse
- compose in heroic verse
- recite heroic verse
- dactylic hexameter
the technical name for this specific metre
- hexameter
any six-foot line; less specific than heroic verse
2. A metrical line of five iambic feet, each moving from an unstressed to a stresse
A metrical line of five iambic feet, each moving from an unstressed to a stressed syllable, used as the standard form for English epic poems between about 1650 and 1800.
Roya analysed the heroic verse of Paradise Lost for her dissertation on Milton.
heroic verse of [English epic title]
Ziad sat in the library with Dryden's Virgil open, tapping out the heroic verse rhythm on his knee.
Nora read aloud a passage of heroic verse from Pope's translation of the Iliad.
heroic verse from [translation work]
Abigail read the heroic verse of Paradise Lost aloud in the lecture hall, the metre's elevated tone filling the room.
Evelyn read heroic verse from Pope's Iliad aloud, her voice rising and falling with the iambic rhythm.
- English heroic verse
- write in heroic verse
- a passage of heroic verse
- iambic pentameter
the metre itself, without the epic-poetry context
- blank verse
unrhymed iambic pentameter; heroic verse may or may not rhyme
Common Mistakes
Etymology
First known use
1586
1586, in the meaning defined at sense 1