II. Couplet - The Open Couplet

[Tinker]

Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry
The Frame
Couplet Construction

An open couplet is a rhymed two-line poetic unit that is enjambed. The end of the frame is not closed but the subject is carried forward into the subsequent couplet without pause or punctuation at the end of the line. This technique was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) and continued to gain popularity into the 17th century when it was nicknamed "riding rhyme". This stanzaic form is also called Chaucer's couplet because of its use in his Canterbury Tales which demonstrated its particular suitability to narratives and didactic verse.

         Even as new occasion appears?
         Or shall we tie ourselves for certain years
         To any service, Or to any place?
         For it behooves ere that into the race
         We enter, to resolve first hereupon.
         Now surely brother (said the Fox anon)
                      ---Sir Edmund Spenser from Mother Hubbard's Tale 1591 L118-L124