Modern Use
Twentieth century authors have occasionally made use of the heroic couplet, often as an allusion to the works of poets of previous centuries. An example of this is Vladimir Nabokov's novel Pale Fire, the second section of which is a 999 line, 4 canto poem largely written in loose heroic couplets but also allowing for frequent enjambment. Here is an example from the first canto.
- And then black night. That blackness was sublime.
- I felt distributed through space and time:
- One foot upon a mountaintop. One hand
- Under the pebbles of a panting strand,
- One ear in Italy, one eye in Spain,
- In caves, my blood, and in the stars, my brain.
- (Canto One. 147-153)
Read more about this topic: Heroic Couplet
Famous quotes containing the word modern:
“An ... important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)