What is a Couplet?
A pair of consecutive lines of poetry that typically rhyme and have the same meter.
Couplets: A Match Made in Poetry
Couplets are a poetic device with a magnetic quality - they draw us in with their simple yet satisfying symmetry. Composed of two consecutive lines of similar length and meter, the couplet is often used to provide a sense of closure or resolution to a poem.
The most common form of the couplet is the rhyming couplet, in which the two lines end with words that share the same sound. However, couplets can also be written in blank verse, with no rhyming scheme - these are called unrhymed or heroic couplets.
While the couplet may seem at first glance like a simple form, it has a rich history in poetry - from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Byron, great writers have employed the couplet to add emotional impact and structural harmony to their works. So whether you're writing a sonnet or a whimsical limerick, consider the power of the couplet to create a poetic match made in heaven.
Couplets are a flexible poetic device that can lend themselves to a variety of literary styles and themes. Here are two examples of how couplets have been used in literature throughout the centuries.
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan\The proper study of mankind is man.\Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,\A being darkly wise and rudely great."
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;\Coral is far more red than her lips' red;\If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;\If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head."
- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130