Literature Glossary

Don’t be an oxymoron. Know your literary terms.

Over 200 literary terms, Shmooped to perfection.

Couplet

Definition:

These cute little buggers are tiny stanzas. So tiny, in fact, that they only include two lines. Sometimes they rhyme, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're written in meter (as in heroic couplets), sometimes they're not.

Bottom line? If you see a stanza that's two lines long, it's a couplet.