Couplet / heroic couplet
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
A couplet is two successive lines of poetry, often rhymed.
The rhyming iambic pentameter or five-stress couplet—later known as the heroic couplet—was introduced into English by Chaucer
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
A couplet is two lines in a row, often rhymed. The heroic couplet is a rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter, the five-stress line, which the glossary says Chaucer introduced into English. The example below opens a poem published in 1711.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
A public-domain example
Public domain in the US: the ebook's front matter prints 1711, before 1931, as the front matter quoted below shows. Only the opening lines are shown. The example illustrates the form; the rules above come from the glossary, not from the poem.
'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill,
Project Gutenberg ebook #7409 · our check found this text on October 31, 2026
Original publication, from the ebook
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. BY ALEXANDER POPE,
Original publication, from the ebook
These were followed by the Essay on Criticism , 1711;