English Literature / Unit 4 ENL 0317 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Chaucer's Verse: Couplet and Rhyme Royal
Captions available
The idea
Most of the Canterbury Tales is in rhymed pentameter couplets, which Chaucer pioneered in English and which later poets would call heroic couplets. He also introduced rhyme royal, the seven-line stanza, used in the Parliament of Fowls and in Troilus and Criseyde.
In practice
Couplets for the Tales; rhyme royal elsewhere.
Where people slip
Rhyme royal's definition here rests on one source.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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