The Poetical Works, Volume I

John Dryden (1631–1700) · 1660–1700

Heroic couplets: rhymed pairs of iambic pentameter · 9,115 lines in 21 sections

Dryden's own verse rather than his Virgil: Absalom and Achitophel, Mac Flecknoe, A Song for St Cecilia's Day, and the satires in heroic couplets.

Measured across the book

Across its 9,115 lines, 95% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 95% to 95%). Alliteration runs at 1.16 times what shuffling the words would give (0.38 observed against 0.33 expected). 8% of the lines have a feminine ending.

Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.

Contents

About this text

Public domain. Text from The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1 With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes, Project Gutenberg ebook #11488. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.

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