Distich

Poetry in rhyming couplets is one of the simplest Rhyme Scheme s:

''aa bb cc dd ee ff''... etc.

Example (J. Kilmer - Trees):

I THINK that I shall never see ''a''
A poem lovely as a tree. ''a''

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest ''b''
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast; ''b''

This scheme was used in Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales in the 14th century and became popular again in the 18th century with poets such as Dryden and Alexander Pope . Kural s, which form a subclass of the Venpa class of Tamil poetry, are couplets. Tirukkural is a popular book written in Kural Venpa form. Couplets with a meter of Iambic Pentameter are called ''heroic couplets''.

Couplets can also play a role in more complex rhyme schemes. For example, Shakespearean Sonnet s end with a couplet.

As examples of couplets are the paradoxist distich , the tautological distich and the dualistic distich .

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Distich