Closed Couplet

Literary/ Cultural Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)
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  • The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

An end-stopped, rhymed couplet that contains a complete thought. Such couplets were usual ways of closing and resuming Renaissance sonnets, although they are found elsewhere as well. Here is one which ends Shakespeares Sonnet 94:

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

50 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Closed Couplet". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=196, accessed 23 November 2024.]

196 Closed Couplet 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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