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Moral couplet

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A rhyming couplet that delivers a concise moral lesson, commonly found in didactic or neoclassical verse.

Detailed Definition
A two-line verse unit combining rhyme with ethical, didactic, or moral content, expressing proverbial wisdom or instructive maxims. Moral couplets are common in neoclassical poetry, particularly Pope's work, where rhymed pairs deliver memorable ethical observations. The rhyme reinforces moral teaching, making wisdom quotable and memorable. These verses function as portable ethics, combining sound pleasure with instruction, reflecting poetry's traditional didactic function.
Example
Example in poetry:
Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man” uses moral couplet: “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”; John Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel” employs moral couplet for political ethics; Contemporary poet A.E. Stallings uses moral couplet in “Hapax Legomenon”; Emily Dickinson’s “Much Madness is divinest Sense” uses moral couplet to invert logic; Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” uses moral couplet: “Good fences make good neighbors”; W.H. Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” uses moral couplet: “poetry makes nothing happen.”
Additional Notes
Neoclassical form combining ethical content with memorable form. The rhyme helps reader remember the moral. Related to didactic poetry and gnomic verse.
Also Known As
Didactic couplet Ethical pair Gnomic doublet Sententious two-liner Emblematic Couplet Wisdom couplet
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