Pope Assignment

Write one (and one only!) correct heroic couplet, and make sure it is not only technically correct, but also makes some sense.

The rever’d object thou desirest most;

For which the longing is a feeble host.

Masculine rhyme, because of the seriousness of the matter, obviously. It is a closed thought, as the heroic couplet demands. Both sentences contain ten feet and contain iambic stress.

Within the meaning of the words there is a small antithesis present – which was so often used in the eighteenth century. What is ‘desire[d] most’ versus the fragile ‘feeble host’.

The wise words

Whatever ‘object’[1] you desire most, is the thing that is most feeble and frail in its realistic longing and hope. What you long for with all your heart is most of the time something you know you will never have. This concept is of course a vicious circle, because you want something, you cannot have it and therefore you want it even more. But it is in this tragic frozen state that one can actually be very content. (A couplet following this one, would express how imagination is the key to a blissful life devoid of actual love.)

This couplet was inspired by a favourite piece of poetry of mine, Marvell’s “The Definition of Love”, mainly because I so devotedly agree with the thought it expresses. What to write a beautiful heroic couplet about other than tragic love? Tragedy is the core to all artistic expressions.

The correct iambic divisions in my couplet

- unstressed

/ stressed

The re ver’d ob ject thou de si rest most;

- / - / - / - / - /

For which the long ing is a fee ble host.

- / - / - / - / - /

Roos Brekelmans, 0419451.

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[1] Although ‘object’ is used, the couplet does refer to more irrational things such as love. The whole concept of desire in this context is not quite that applicable with ‘objects’ like entering a research-master and acquiring a PhD. It is less universal in its tragedy.