closed couplet
n.
A rhymed couplet forming a complete thought or syntactic unit, for example, “True wit is nature to advantage dressed,/What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed” (Alexander Pope).
|
Results for closed couplet
|
On this page:
|
A rhymed couplet forming a complete thought or syntactic unit, for example, “True wit is nature to advantage dressed,/What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed” (Alexander Pope).
closed couplet, two lines of metrical verse in which the syntax and sense come to a conclusion or a strong pause at the end of the second line, giving the couplet the quality of a self‐contained epigram. The term is applied almost always to rhyming couplets, especially to the heroic couplet; but whereas the heroic couplets of Chaucer and Keats often allow the sense to run on over the end of the second line (see enjambment), those written by English poets in the late 17th century and in the 18th are usually end‐stopped, and are thus closed couplets, as in these lines about men from Sarah Fyge Egerton's ‘The Emulation’ (1703):
They fear we should excel their sluggish parts,
Should we attempt the sciences and arts;
Pretend they were designed for them alone,
So keep us fools to raise their own renown.
A couplet in which the sense and syntax is self-contained within its two lines, as opposed to an open couplet.
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
a rhymed couplet that forms a complete syntactic unit
In poetics, closed couplets are two line units of verse that do not extend their sense beyond the line's end. Furthermore, the lines are usually rhymed. the form was particularly common in Augustan literature and later Restoration literature, with John Dryden and Alexander Pope being the prime practitioners. When the lines are in iambic pentameter, they are referred to as heroic verse. However, Samuel Butler also used closed couplets in his iambic tetrameter Hudibrastic verse.
is an example of the closed couplet in heroic verse from Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "closed couplet" at WikiAnswers.
Copyrights:
![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Poetry Glossary. Copyright © 2007, ILOVEPOETRY, Inc, All Rights Reserved. Read more | |
![]() | WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Closed couplet". Read more |