Couplets

Couplets are two successive lines of verse that form a single unit, typically sharing the same meter and often a rhyme. They can function as standalone stanzas or as closing pairs within a longer poem. In English and many traditions, couplets are frequently end-stopped, but they may also be enjambed to emphasize a continuation of thought.

Rhymed couplets appear when the two lines rhyme; a popular subform is the heroic couplet, composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter. Heroic couplets are associated with 17th- and 18th-century English poetry, though the technique has earlier roots in classical verse. When the two lines in a couplet form a complete sentence or clause, the couplet is described as closed; if the sentence continues beyond the line break, it is open.

Historically, the term elegiac couplet describes a classical unit used in Greek and Latin poetry: a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of dactylic pentameter. In English literature, rhymed iambic pentameter couplets became prominent in the Augustan era; notable uses include Alexander Pope’s lines “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” In sonnets, the final two lines often constitute a rhymed couplet that serves as a concluding or resolving unit.

Cross-cultural note: in Chinese poetry, duilian are two lines placed side by side with matched tones and parallel structure, used for decoration and expression. The concept of a two-line unit appears in various literary traditions as a basic stanza form.