Page "The Conquest of Granada" Paragraph 4

Dryden wrote the play in closed couplets of iambic pentameter.

He proposed, in the Preface to the printed play, a new type of drama that celebrated heroic figures and actions in a meter and rhyme that emphasized the dignity of the action.

Dryden's innovation is a notable turn in poetic diction in England, as he was attempting to find an English meter and vocabulary that could correspond to the ancient Latin heroic verse structure.

The closed iambic couplet is, indeed, referred to as the " heroic couplet " ( although couplets had certainly been used before, and with a heroic connotation, as Samuel Butler's parody in tetrameter couplets, Hudibras shows ).

As for subject matter, the hero of a heroic drama must demonstrate, Dryden said, the Classical virtues of strength and decisiveness.

Inasmuch as the British Restoration stage was already under attack for the licentiousness of its comedies and the example set by its lewd actresses, Dryden was attempting to turn the tide to admirable subjects.