Neoclassical poets were late 17th- and 18th-century writers who looked to the art and ideas of ancient Greece and Rome for their models. They valued order, balance, clarity, wit, and restraint, and often favored formal verse such as the heroic couplet. Writers such as Alexander Pope and John Dryden are closely associated with this tradition, which later Romantic poets reacted against.
Example
True wit should guide the line, not rush too far;
The mind must keep its reason clear and star.
The couplets balance, measured, neat, and bright,
Each thought contained with polished, formal light.