Editing Heroic couplet (section)

==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 with frequent [[enjambment]].<ref name=Ferrando>{{cite book |last=Ferrando |first=Ignasi Navarro |title=In-roads of Language: Essay in English Studies |publisher=Universitat Jaume I |date=1996 |page=125}}</ref> Here is an example from the first canto:

{{quote|<poem>
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.
</poem>|(Canto One. 147–153)}}

The use of heroic couplets in translations of [[Greco-Roman mythology|Greco-Roman epics]] has also inspired translations of non-Western works into English. In 2021, [[Vietnamese people|Vietnamese]] translator Nguyen Binh published a translation of the [[Vietnamese literature|Vietnamese epic poem]] ''[[The Tale of Kieu|Tale of Kiều]]'', in which the ''[[lục bát]]'' couplets of the original were rendered into heroic couplets.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tái hiện vẻ đẹp thi ca của Truyện Kiều bằng tiếng Anh |url=https://nhandan.vn/vanhoa/tai-hien-ve-dep-thi-ca-cua-truyen-kieu-bang-tieng-anh-674894/ |website=Nhân Dân |date=22 November 2021 |access-date=7 January 2022}}</ref> Binh named [[John Dryden]] and [[Alexander Pope]] as major influences on their work, which also mimicked the spelling of Dryden and Pope's translations to evoke the medieval air of the [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] original.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Binh |first1=Nguyen |title=The Tale of Kiều: A New Cry of Heart-Rending Pain |date=2021 |publisher=Writers Association Publishing House}}</ref> An example of the heroic couplet translation can be found below:
 
{{quote|<poem>
One mounted, one released the other’s coat,
The autumn maples dyed with roads remote.
Red miles cast dust upon the faring steed; 
He disappear’d behind the berry mead. 
One stay’d as shadow through the hours of night,
One left alone for great miles out of sight.
Who had cut up the rounded moon in two, 
Half shining cushions, half on miles that grew?
</poem>|(VI. 1519-1526)}}