A couplet is a pair of successive lines of

metre The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pre ...

in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on (or open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second.

Background

The word "couplet" comes from the French word meaning "two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together". The term "couplet" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's '' Arcadia '' in 1590: "In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere." While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called " feet". "Iam ...

are called ''

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 ...

s''.

John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the p ...

in the 17th century and

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

in the 18th century were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets. The

Poetic epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mill ...

is also in the couplet form. Couplets can also appear as part of more complex

rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB r ...

s, such as

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

s. Rhyming couplets are one of the simplest rhyme schemes in poetry. Because the rhyme comes so quickly, it tends to call attention to itself. Good rhyming couplets tend to "explode" as both the rhyme and the idea come to a quick close in two lines. Here are some examples of rhyming couplets where the sense as well as the sound "rhymes": :: True wit is nature to advantage dress'd; :: What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd. :: — Alexander Pope :: Whether or not we find what we are seeking :: Is idle, biologically speaking. :: — Edna St. Vincent Millay (at the end of a sonnet) On the other hand, because rhyming couplets have such a predictable rhyme scheme, they can feel artificial and plodding. Here is a Pope parody of the predictable rhymes of his era: :: Where-e'er you find "the cooling western breeze," :: In the next line, it "whispers through the trees;" :: If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep," :: The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep."

In English poetry

Regular rhyme was not originally a feature of English poetry:

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

verse came in metrically-paired units somewhat analogous to couplets, but constructed according to

alliterative verse In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...

principles. The rhyming couplet entered English verse in the early

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old Englis ...

period through the imitation of

medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...

and

Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...

models. The earliest surviving examples are a metrical paraphrase of the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

in short-line couplets, and the ''

Poema Morale The ''Poema Morale'' ("Conduct of life" or "Moral Ode") is an early Middle English moral poem outlining proper Christian conduct. The poem was popular enough to have survived in seven manuscripts, including the homiletic collections known as the L ...

'' in septenary (or "heptameter") couplets, both dating from the twelfth century. Rhyming couplets were often used in Middle English and

early modern English Early Modern English or Early New English (sometimes abbreviated EModE, EMnE, or ENE) is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration, or from the transition from Middle E ...

poetry.

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

's ''

Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's '' magnum opu ...

'', for instance, is predominantly written in rhyming couplets, and Chaucer also incorporated a concluding couplet into his

rhyme royal Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing ...

stanza. Similarly,

Shakespearean William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

s often employ rhyming couplets at the end to emphasize the theme. Take one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets,

Sonnet 18 "Sonnet 18" is one of the best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. In the sonnet, the speaker asks whether he should compare the Fair Youth to a summer's day, but notes that he has qu ...

, for example (the rhyming couplet is shown in italics): :: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? :: Thou art more lovely and more temperate: :: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, :: And summer's lease hath all too short a date: :: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, :: And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; :: And every fair from fair sometime declines, :: By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; :: But thy eternal summer shall not fade :: Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; :: Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, :: When in eternal lines to time thou growest: :: ''So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,'' :: ''So long lives this and this gives life to thee.'' In the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century English rhyming couplets achieved the zenith of their prestige in English verse, in the popularity of heroic couplets. The heroic couplet was used by famous poets for ambitious translations of revered Classical texts, for instance, in

's translation of the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of ...

'' and in

's translation of the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Ody ...

''. Though poets still sometimes write in couplets, the form fell somewhat from favour in English in the twentieth century; contemporary poets writing in English sometimes prefer unrhymed couplets, distinguished by layout rather than by matching sounds.

In Chinese poetry

Chinese couplet In Chinese poetry, a duilian () is a pair of lines of poetry which adhere to certain rules (see below). Outside of poems, they are usually seen on the sides of doors leading to people's homes or as hanging scrolls in an interior. Although often c ...

s or "contrapuntal couplets" may be seen on doorways in Chinese communities worldwide. Couplets displayed as part of the

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional lunisolar and solar Chinese calendar. In Chinese and other East Asian cultures, the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival () a ...

festival, on the first morning of the New Year, are called ''chunlian'' (春联). These are usually purchased at a market a few days before and glued to the doorframe. The text of the couplets is often traditional and contains hopes for prosperity. Other chunlian reflect more recent concerns. For example, the

CCTV New Year's Gala The ''CCTV New Year's Gala'', also known as the ''Spring Festival Gala'', and commonly abbreviated in Chinese as ''Chunwan'', is a Chinese New Year special produced by China Media Group (CMG). It is broadcast annually on the eve of Chinese Ne ...

usually promotes couplets reflecting current political themes in

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the China, People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming Island, Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territorie ...

. Some Chinese couplets may consist of two lines of four characters each. Couplets are read from top to bottom where the first line starts from the right. But is also a 6 word diagraph with 19 lines

In Tamil poetry

Tamil literature Tamil literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of evolution. Contributors to the Tamil literature are mainly from T ...

contains some of the best known examples of ancient couplet poetry. The

Tamil language Tamil (; ' , ) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. Tamil is an official language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the sovereign nations of Sri Lanka and Singapore, and the Indian territory o ...

has a rich and refined grammar for couplet poetry, and distichs in Tamil poetry follow the venpa metre. The most famous example for Tamil couplet poetry is the ancient Tamil moral text of the

Tirukkural The ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'' ( ta, திருக்குறள், lit=sacred verses), or shortly the ''Kural'' ( ta, குறள்), is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. The tex ...

, which contains a total of 1330 couplets written in the kural venpa metre from which the title of the work was derived centuries later. Each Kural couplet is made of exactly 7 words—4 in the first line and 3 in the second. The first word may rhyme with the fourth or the fifth word. Below is an example of a couplet: : :. (

, verse 205) ::''Transliteration'': Ilan endru theeyavai seyyarkka seyyin ::Ilanaagum matrum peyartthu ::''Translation'': Make not thy poverty a plea for ill; ::Thine evil deeds will make thee poorer still. (

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

, 1886)

Distich

The American poet J. V. Cunningham was noted for many distichs included in the various forms of

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mill ...

s included in his poetry collections, as exampled here: Deep summer, and time passes. Sorrow wastes
To a new sorrow. While Time heals time hastesBarber, David 'A Brief for Epigrams' Parnassus Poetry Aug 19 2011

References

External links

* {{Poetic forms Poetic forms Poetic rhythm 2 (number)