What is Couplet in literature?
A couplet is a pair of lines of poetry that usually rhyme and have the same meter or rhythm. In traditional English poetry, couplets often appear in pairs, with the first line setting up a statement or proposition, and the second line providing a response or conclusion.
Couplets can be found in various forms of poetry, including sonnets, ballads, and epigrams. They can be written in a range of meter, from iambic pentameter to free verse, and can be used for a variety of effects, from humor to philosophical reflection.
Here is an example of a couplet from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
In this couplet, the speaker asks a rhetorical question in the first line, and in the second line answers it by saying that the person he is addressing is more beautiful and even-tempered than a summer’s day.
