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In poetry, a couplet (/ ˈ k ʌ p l ə t / CUP-lət) or distich (/ ˈ d ɪ s t ɪ k / DISS-tick) 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 ...
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 Good Women and the Canterbury Tales, [1] and generally considered to have been perfected by John Dryden and Alexander Pope in the Restoration Age and ...
However, Samuel Butler also used closed couplets in his iambic tetrameter Hudibrastic verse. [1] "True wit is nature to advantage dressed What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd" is an example of the closed couplet in heroic verse from Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism.
John Denham, influential writer of heroic couplets. The heroic couplet is a pair of iambic pentameter lines that rime together. Frequently, the term is associated with the balanced, closed couplets that dominated English verse from roughly 1640 to 1790, [22] [23] although the form dates back to Chaucer, and remains in use often in a looser form.
The elegiac couplet or elegaic distich is a poetic form used by Greek lyric poets for a variety of themes usually of smaller scale than the epic. Roman poets , particularly Catullus , Propertius , Tibullus , and Ovid , adopted the same form in Latin many years later.
The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Penguin Books, 2000. ISBN 0-14-051363-9. Dana Gioia. The Longman Dictionary of Literary Terms: Vocabulary for the Informed Reader. Longman, 2005. ISBN 0-321-33194-X. Sharon Hamilton. Essential Literary Terms: A Brief Norton Guide with Exercises. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 0-393-92837-3.
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Decasyllabic quatrain is a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables each, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB. Examples of the decasyllabic quatrain in heroic couplets appear in some of the earliest texts in the English language, as Geoffrey Chaucer created the heroic couplet and used it in The Canterbury Tales. [1]