What is the effect of a one verse poem with rhyming couplets?

Question:effect of one verse or stanza monologue eg, my last duchess, and the effect of rhymed couplets

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: effect of one verse or stanza monologue eg, my last duchess, and the effect of rhymed couplets

Browning's poem is a "one verse" poem only because he didn't break it up after each couplet. The skill of this poet is that the rhyming couplets don't come off as being too "rhymy" or "contrived" because he enjambs the lines...in other words, the lines are not hard "end-stopped" rhymes. For example,

Roses are red, violets blue
Grapes are sweet, apples are too

This couplet sounds rhymy because each line "ends" the thought, whereas Browning's lines go like this,

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.

Notice how lines 2 and 3 continue into the next line? That's called "enjambment" and it allows the poet to create couplets that when read go all but unnoticed. It also keeps the poem sounding like rhymed poetry, but in a more subtle way that isn't too harsh or childish on the ear. The poem almost reads as prose, but it has sufficient poetic elements to make it an obvious poem. It is this skill that is the trademark of a great poet. The poem bounces along without being tiresome...Shakespeare did this quite often in his plays where unless you "read" the play, you might miss the fact that many of the lines actually rhymed.

This is probably an assignment you were given, and although I would normally allow you to figure this out by yourself, I thought it important enough of a subject that I'd share the information with other poets who are struggling to make rhymed poetry less "rhymy".