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Poetry Guide > Forms > Octosyllabic Couplet
The octosyllabic couplet form consists of rhyming pairs of iambic tetrameter verses.1
Examples of the octosyllabic couplet
Sir Hudibras his passing worth,
The manner how he sallied forth;
His arms and equipage are shown;
His horse’s virtues, and his own.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I, Canto I
History
The Spenserian stanza was either invented or first used extensively Edmund Spencer, a celebrated English Poet. He used the stanza, The Faerie Queene, a long poem known as a “rich store-house of invention”.2
