What Are Rhyming Couplets

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Lutgarda Briseno

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:23:44 PM8/3/24

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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.

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.

A couplet is a stanza (or even a poem) consisting of two lines. These need not rhyme, nor be the same length, but can be. If there is no enjambment at the end of the second line, it can be called a closed couplet (the opposite being an open couplet), especially if this is a recurring pattern. A closed rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter, especially one which forms a unit of sense, is called a heroic couplet; many of these can be found in Pope's 'Essay on Man'. It is also possible to find a longer poem whose lines are rhymed in pairs - aabbcc etc - described as ...

Can it be, October already ? Then time to grasp at the accidental inspiration for some short poems. Over the coming week you can enjoy some vol-au-vents prompted by the official titles, all of little consequence but hopefully of some enjoyment.

Toastingfork is a reclusive poet favouring anonymity in out-of-date utensils, seeking the shadows while stoking the flames, and tarnishing our daily bread while loading us up with carbs. Feel free to contact him on his too-long-for-a-single-line email at toasti...@rhymingcouplets.com

Poets count rhyme by assigning rhyme sounds letters of the alphabet based on the order of a rhyme's first appearance. The first rhyme in a poem is "a," the second "b," etc. Chaucer's most common verse rhyme scheme in the Canterbury Tales, the rhyming couplet, would be described as "aa, bb, cc, dd" because it rarely repeats a rhyme due to the pressures on the poet to keep the narrative moving. Shorter lyrics tend to use rhyme repetition to sonically link words, so that when rhymes repeat in a quatrain, for instance, poets have options like "abab," or "abba" (creating an "internal couplet" with the "bb" rhyme). Rhymes also can link stanzas together in the "concatenated" or Spensarian sonnet, which rhymes "abab bcbc cdcd ee," creating internal couplets at stanza boundaries, as well as ending with the traditional English sonnet's couplet.

"Gentilesse" is a ballade, a stanzaic Frenchform rhyming "ABABBCC" and usually having as its topic a lover's complaint, ormoral or political advice. In Chaucer's hands this form is capable of ironic humor("To Adam Scryvyn," "Complaint to His Purse") as well as sophisticatedsocial commentary ("Gentilesse" and "Truth"). When an"Envoy" is attached, as in the case of "Truth," the poem's messagebecomes directed to a particular dedicatee (e.g., Sir Philip de la Vache, or Henry IV inthe case of "Complaint to His Purse") but the manuscript audience continues tooverhear and appreciate the poet's more general message with the added treat of knowingfor certain the intended recipient of its hidden messages. In the case of Wyatt, Surrey,and later lyric poets, the dedicatee of the poem often was intentionally obscured by theuse of codes and symbols for political reasons (e.g., Anne Boleyn becomes the"hind" or female deer who belongs to "Caesar" or Henry VIII and istherefore "dangerous to hold"; see "Whoso List to Hunt" on p. 441).Hiding the poem's dedicatee was the more ancient practice, found in classical times in thepoems of Sappho and Catullus, and in medieval times used by the troubadors and trobaritzwho named their beloveds by using "senhals" or pen names like"Tristan" or "Floris," probably borrowing the practice from Arabwriters.

More of the poem's "hidden" meaning iscontained in its sound, the rhyme scheme, which links words especially at the ends oflines. The basic reason to use rhyme is that of your childhood "ABC"rhyme--mnemonic assistance. The rhymed words linger in the readers' memories a littlelonger than the rest, becoming associated in a deeper structure of meaning. "Internalrhyme" also abounds with potential mnemonic significance, as in the fourth line's"Vertu to sue" [to seek moral strength], as well as alliteration, the basicmusical device of Old English (e.g., "first fader and finder"--which sets off"gentilesse" by sudden contrast).

How might the repetition of rhyme words,especially the unexpected repetition in couplets formed when the alternating rhymeswitches, affect the way the mind juxtaposes those rhymed words. In Chaucer's"Gentilesse," for instance, notice how the red rhymes tend to contain majormoral qualities, and the repetition of the last line bears down on the higher statusreaders with increasing force each time it reappears. What does it imply about theirheirs?