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Amit Bolds
In poetry, a couplet is a pair of lines in a verse. Typically, they rhyme and have the same meter or rhythm. They make up a unit or complete thought. Expand your poetic mind through a definition of rhyming couplets and rhyming couplet examples.
Before you dive right into rhyming couplet examples, you need to have a solid definition of what a rhyming couplet is. To understand what a rhyming couplet is, you just have to look at the phrase: rhyming couplet.
You'll notice that the two lines of poetry are similar in length. Both have six syllables and the words tense and sense rhyme. Well, that is a rhyming couplet at play. Explore this poetic device more through several rhyming couplet examples.
Rhyming couplets don't just stand alone. They can be part of large famous works like those from literary wordsmiths such as Pope and Dryden. Explore a few classic couplet examples created by poetry masters.
One of the greatest wordsmiths of all time, William Shakespeare, who's actually credited with creating English words, also liked to add a couplet or two to his writing. Explore some of the great couplets found in Shakespeare's famous plays and poems.
Now you can see how rhyming couplets work. Thanks to their short and succinct form, they are a good way to produce a startling or dramatic effect in a poem or provide a sense of completion to the piece. For more on the use of couplets, see famous couplet examples.
A couplet is simply two lines that rhyme at the end. They almost always form complete thoughts ("I don't know what to do today / but I want to go out and play!"), but can also be strung together to make longer, more complex forms of poetry, like ghazals. Couplets are the building blocks of most rhyming poetry, and they are also a great way to warm up or practice rhyming.
In poetry, a couplet or distich is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (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 (open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second.[1]
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."[2]
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 are called heroic couplets. John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in the 18th century were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets. The Poetic epigram is also in the couplet form. Couplets can also appear as part of more complex rhyme schemes, such as sonnets.
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":
Regular rhyme was not originally a feature of English poetry: Old English verse came in metrically paired units somewhat analogous to couplets, but constructed according to alliterative verse principles. The rhyming couplet entered English verse in the early Middle English period through the imitation of medieval Latin and Old French models.[3] The earliest surviving examples are a metrical paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer in short-line couplets, and the Poema Morale in septenary (or "heptameter") couplets, both dating from the twelfth century.[4]
Rhyming couplets were often used in Middle English and early modern English poetry. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, for instance, is predominantly written in rhyming couplets, and Chaucer also incorporated a concluding couplet into his rhyme royal stanza. Similarly, Shakespearean sonnets often employ rhyming couplets at the end to emphasize the theme. Take one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets, Sonnet 18, for example (the rhyming couplet is shown in italics):
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 John Dryden's translation of the Aeneid and in Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad.[6]
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.[7]
Couplets called duilian may be seen on doorways in Chinese communities worldwide. Duilian displayed as part of the Chinese New Year 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 usually promotes couplets reflecting current political themes in mainland China.
Read on to learn about the history of the sonnet and the various qualities that make up a sonnet poem, including the traditional sonnet rhyme scheme and meter. We'll also go over all the major types of sonnets, give you examples, and offer a handful of tips for writing your very own sonnet poem.
In addition, sonnets have something called a volta (twist or turn), in which the rhyme scheme and the subject of the poem suddenly change, often to indicate a response to a question, a solution to a problem, or the resolving of some sort of tension established at the beginning of the poem. This turn normally happens closer to the end of the sonnet, though precisely when it appears varies depending on the particular sonnet form.
Originating in Italy, the sonnet comes from the Italian word sonetto, meaning "little song" or "little sound." The oldest known sonnet form was invented by Italian poet Francesco Petrach in the 14th century. Called the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, this sonnet structure consists of first an octave (eight lines of verse in iambic pentameter) and then a sestet (six lines). The rhyme scheme is abba abba; the rhyme scheme in the sestet can vary a little but is typically cde cde or cdc dcd.
But it is perhaps famed 16th-century English poet and playwright William Shakespeare who came up with the most well-known and easily recognizable sonnet form. In the Shakespearean or English sonnet, each line is 10 syllables long written in iambic pentameter. The structure can be divided into three quatrains (four-line stanzas) plus a final rhyming couplet (two-line stanza). The Shakespearean sonnet rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
The Spenserian sonnet is extremely similar to the Shakespearean sonnet. The main difference is the rhyme scheme: whereas the Shakespearean rhyme scheme introduces a new rhyme in each quatrain, the Spenserian sonnet carries over the latter rhyme from the previous quatrain in a chain rhyme: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
While this sonnet form is mostly the same as that of the Petrarchan sonnet (it uses the Petrarchan rhyme scheme of abba abba cde cde), Miltonic sonnets use enjambment to offer a more compact, interconnected presentation of the thoughts being expressed. (Enjambment is when a sentence, thought, or phrase continues beyond a line in poetry without pause.)
Another key difference between the two sonnet forms is theme: Petrarchan sonnets tend to focus on love and romance, while Miltonic sonnets are often about faith or political/social matters.
The terza rima sonnet is named for a poetic convention called terza rima, which is a three-line stanza that uses a chain rhyme (the carrying over of the rhyme used in a previous stanza). The rhyme scheme of the terza rima sonnet is aba bcb cdc ded followed by a rhyming couplet that usually echoes the first rhyme of the poem: aa.
Unlike the majority of sonnets, the curtal sonnet does not strictly abide by the 14-line rule; rather, it maintains the overall proportions of the Petrarchan sonnet by contracting two quatrains in the octet into two tercets (three-line stanzas) and the final sestet into a quintet (five-line stanza).
The final line of the quintet (and the sonnet as a whole) is much shorter than other lines and is called a "tail" or "half-line." As a result, the curtal sonnet can be described as being either 10.5 or 11 lines long.
The curtal sonnet rhyme scheme is abc abc followed by dbcdc or dcbdc. What's more, this sonnet form uses a type of meter called sprung rhythm, which differs from iambic pentameter in that each line starts with a stressed instead of unstressed sound and (usually) contains four stressed syllables.
The first step to writing a great sonnet poem is to get more acquainted with sonnets and their characteristics as a whole, including how they sound in terms of both rhythm and rhyme, what kinds of themes and subjects they focus on, and what types of volta they employ.
Another option is to search for sonnets in online databases, such as Poets.org. On this website, you can search for a specific sonnet or poet, or browse all available sonnets by choosing "Sonnet" under "Forms" and letting the page load.
Traditional sonnets are love poems, but you shouldn't feel limited to romance. Many people have written sonnets that discuss things such as faith, social or political matters, tensions or problems, mundane situations, etc.
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