HEROIC COUPLET

QUESTION: What is Heroic Couplet? 

ANSWER: Heroic couplet is prosody. Here the lines rhyme together in pairs, and each line consists of five iambic feet. It was a favoured form of the 18th century.

For example:

[1] One science only will one genius feet;

      So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

[2] Not only bound to peculiar arts,

     But oft in those confined to single parts.

 [Pope: An Essay On criticism]

 [3] All human things are subject to decay,

       And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey

 [Dryden: Shadwell]