3.5 Pope and the Heroic Couplet

Notes

Alexander Pope (1688 to 1744) wrote in heroic couplets: pairs of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter, often with balance and wit.

• Mock epic: uses the grand style of epic poetry for a trivial subject. In The Rape of the Lock (1712, expanded 1714), a quarrel over a stolen lock of hair is told like a battle.
• Zeugma: one verb governs two words in different senses. "Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, / Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea." Taking counsel and taking tea are placed side by side to mock the court's priorities.
• Aphorisms: "To err is human; to forgive, divine." "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; / Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
• Pope's Essay on Man includes "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."