Which of these poems were written in the heroic couplets?

Question

1- "To his coy mistress" by Andrew Marvell.
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/coy.htm
2- "On his blindness" by Milton:
http://www.bartleby.com/101/318.html
3- "The collar" by George Herbert
http://personal.centenary.edu/~lbounds/collar.html
4- "She dwelt among the untrodden ways" by William Wordsworth:
http://www.eliteskills.com/c/2614
5- " Ode to the nightingale" by John keats
http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odetoanightingale.html
6- "London" by William Blake
http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/London.htm
7- Shakespeare's Shall I compare thee
http://www.fleurdelis.com/shallIcomparethee.htm
8- The good morrow by John Donne:
http://www.bartleby.com/105/1.html
9- The passionate Shepherd to his love by "Christopher Marlowe"
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_2000S/intro_lit/LitLab/CM.htm#tpshl

Is there any small part of them written in Heroic couplet?

Answer 1

Here's an example of heroic couplets:

"O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."


Notice that it consists of a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme is always masculine.


1. No - it's not iambic pentameter

2. No - the rhyme scheme is abba, not abab

3. No - it's not iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme's wrong

4. No - it's not iambic pentameter and the rhytme scheme's wrong

5. No - the rhyme scheme's wrong

6. No - the rhyme scheme's wrong

7. No - the rhyme scheme's wrong

8. No - the rhyme scheme's wrong

9. No - it's not iambic pentameter

(The first answerer is, I'm afraid, wrong:

"Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasure prove
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields."

It's tetrameter - just as Number 1 is:

"Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;"

There are only 4 beats to each line, not the five required by iambic pentameter.)
Yikes - the answer is that NONE of them are.

OK, in answer to your "additonal details":

"Shakespeare's (Number 7) does

"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."


The English (or Shakespearean) Sonnet (16th century) contains three quatrains, each with an independent pair of alternating rhymes. Both a shift and a turn (as noted in forms of the Sonnet) occur respectively before and after the third quatrain.

Like the Spenserian Sonnet, the English Sonnet concludes with a rhymed couplet. The resulting form is:


a b a b - End words of first quatrain in alternating rhyme.
c d c d - End words of second quatrain in alternating rhyme.
- Shift.
e f e f - End words of third quatrain in alternating rhyme.
- Turn.
g g - Heroic couplet.

And to respond to the third answerer's question, I think that if you give an answer with enough detail, then the asker can actually LEARN something from the answer.
It's part of what teachers do, you see.

Answer 2

Another technical question! Yes!!!

1: no, because it's not in iambic pentameter (tetrameter).
2: no
3: no
4: no
5: no
6: no
7: no
8: no
9: yes

Edit: damn it! I made a mistake. True, 9, is also tetrameter. I forgot to check!

Edit 2: No, absolutely not. Impossible for sonnets, even if you have a rhyming couplet at the end, AND it's an iambic pentameter. As for the others, either the rhyme scheme does not correspond, or it is the rhythm pattern.

Edit 3: I have to disagree on one point with the second answerer, who is apart from this very right and knowledgeable. I would not call the final couplet in a sonnet a "heroic couplet", but simply a rhyming couplet, even if it is in iambic pentameter. The adjective "heroic" refers to the use of the couplet in narrative poetry, such as it was practiced in the 18th century by Pope, for instance.

Answer 3

The final couplet in the Shakespearean sonnet can be considered a heroic couplet. Other than that, there aren't any.

Answer 4

Tell me again why we're doing his homework for him?