# Looking for a term for a Sassoon poem aabb rhyme scheme **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 5, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687 "2016-10-05T06:35:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/1 "2016-10-05T06:35:19Z")
Hi I’m looking for a term for a Sassoon poem(Suicide in the Trenches) aabb rhyme scheme SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES [https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/suicide.html](https://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/suicide.html) I believe it’s called a “simple rhyme scheme”. I look forward to your feedback. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/2 "2016-10-05T08:06:20Z")
I think it’s called an heroic couplet. > [@](#): > > a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. > **[Heroic couplet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_couplet)** > > A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter. Use of the heroic couplet was pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Legend of Good Women and the Canterbury Tales, and generally considered to have been perfected by John Dryden and Alexander Pope in the Restoration Age and early 18th century respectively. > A frequently-cited example illustrating the use of heroic couplets is this... ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2016, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/3 "2016-10-05T12:17:29Z")
Sassoon’s verse is octosyllabic, the classic heroic couplet of poets like Dryden and Pope is decasyllabic. I certainly wouldn’t term these heroic couplets although I’m not sure what the correct term would be. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/4 "2016-10-06T00:40:03Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Sassoon’s verse is octosyllabic, the classic heroic couplet of poets like Dryden and Pope is decasyllabic. I certainly wouldn’t term these heroic couplets although I’m not sure what the correct term would be. clerihew? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/5 "2016-10-06T01:16:41Z")
They are rhymed iambic tetrameter couplets. AFAIK there’s no standard term or nickname for that form, although [it is commonly associated with doggerel verse, AKA “sub-literary jingling”.](http://meadhall.homestead.com/stanzaformandrhyme.html) Which presumably is why Sassoon used the form for his poem, as a bitterly ironic contrast between the dark subject matter and the goofy jingling rhymes that the “simple soldier boy” presumably would have liked. > [@davidmich](#): > > clerihew? 😕 No way. A clerihew (after E. Clerihew Bentley, the form’s best-known popularizer) is a humorous poem usually in two rhyming couples usually with **irregular** line length and no consistent metrical structure. E.g.: George the Third Ought never to have occurred. One can only wonder At so grotesque a blunder. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/6 "2016-10-06T01:22:09Z")
(Trochaic octameter?) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/7 "2016-10-06T02:07:27Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > (Trochaic octameter?) No, **Kimstu** had it right in that it’s iambic tetrameter. The feet are generally unstressed followed by stressed (there is variation, but there is almost always variation, as keeping it strictly iambic throughout would be rhythmically boring, or at least lulling. The only poem I can think of off the tope of my head that is iambic tetrameter throughout is Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”) Octameter would be eight feet per line, not syllables. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2016, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-a-term-for-a-sassoon-poem-aabb-rhyme-scheme/767687/8 "2016-10-07T13:01:42Z")
Thank you all.Very helpful