RHYMES

Welcome to this lecture headed “RHYMES”. We will be discussing all about rhymes. Enjoy your lecture.

Rhyme is a trendy literary device in which the repetition of the same or similar sounds exits in two or more words, frequently at the end of lines in poems or songs.

In a rhyme in English, the vowel sounds in the stressed syllables are matching, whereas the previous consonant sound does not match.

The consonants after the stressed syllables ought to also match. For instance, the words “gaining” and “straining” rhyme words in English due to the fact that they begin with diverse consonant sounds, but the first stressed vowel is matching, as is the rest of the word.

Types of Rhyme

There are a lot of ways to categorize rhyme. A lot of people recognize “perfect rhymes” as the only real type of rhyme.

For instance, “mind” and “kind” are perfect rhymes, while “mind” and “line” are defective match in sounds.

Even within the classification of “perfect” rhymes, there are a few dissimilar types:

Single: This is a rhyme in which the stress is on the last syllable of the words (“mind” and “behind”).

Double: This perfect rhyme has the stress on the second to last syllable (“toasting” and “roasting”).

Dactylic: This rhyme, comparatively unusual in English, has the stress on the antepenultimate, or third-from-last, syllable (“terrible” and “wearable”).

Here are a few other types of common rhymes that are not perfect:

Imperfect or near rhyme: In this form of rhyme, the same sounds take place in two words but in unstressed syllables (“thing” and “missing”).

Identical rhymes: Homonyms in English don’t suit the rules of perfect rhymes due to the fact that while the vowels are matching, the earlier consonants as well match and thus the rhyme is taken inferior.

For instance, “way”, “weigh”, and “whey” are indistinguishable rhymes and are not taken to be good rhymes.

Nevertheless, in French, this type of rhyming is in fact quite accepted and has its own categorization, rime riche.

Eye rhyme: This is widespread in English due to the fact that our words are spelled in the same way, yet have diverse pronunciations.

For instance, “good” and “food” look like they should rhyme, but their vowel sounds are dissimilar.

Commonly used Rhymes

There are a lot of common phrases we say in English that is made up of rhymes. See a few examples below:

See you later, alligator.

In a while, crocodile.

You’re a poet and you didn’t know it.

There are also a lot of conjugate words that we make use of in English that are rhymes, like the following:

Hokey-pokey

Namby-pamby

Itsy-bitsy

Teenie-weenie

Silly-billy

Children’s songs and poems frequently contain rhymes, as they make lines easier to remember and satisfying to listen to.

The famous children’s author Dr. Seuss made a good deal of use of rhyme in his books, like the following lines:

You have brains in your head; you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed).

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Significance of Rhyme in Literature

Rhyme has played a huge part in literature over a lot of millennia of human existence.

The earliest known example is from a Chinese text written in the 10th century BC.

Without a doubt, rhyme has been found in a lot of cultures and a lot of eras. Rhyme As well plays unusual parts in diverse cultures, holding roughly mystical meaning in a few cultures.

A few religious texts exhibit examples of rhyme, including the Qur’an and the Bible. Fascinatingly, though, rhyme schemes move in and out of favor.

The types of poetry that were once popular in the English language, particularly, are no longer very familiar.

For instance, in Shakespeare’s day the sonnet form, with its rhyming quatrains and final rhyming couplet was popular (indeed, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets himself).

Nevertheless, it is very remarkable for contemporary poets to stick to such severe rhyme schemes.

Rhyme is frequently easy for native speakers in a language to hear.

It is utilized as a literacy skill with young children for them to hear phonemes.

Authors frequently make use of rhyme to make their lines more superb and to signal the ends of lines.

Examples of Rhyme in Literature

1. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: (“Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare)

William Shakespeare includes many rhyme examples in his plays.

All of his sonnets followed the very severe sonnet type of enclose three rhyming quatrains and one final rhyming couplet.

The above excerpt comes from possibly his most renowned sonnet, “Sonnet 18”. The opening line is familiar to a lot of English speakers.

It is just one of hundreds of instances of rhyme in his works.

One attractive note is that as a result of the way that the sound of English has distorted over the past four to five hundred years, a few of Shakespeare’s rhymes no longer are perfect rhymes, like the rhyme between “temperate” and “date”.

Nevertheless, it is simple to hear innumerable examples of rhymes in his works, like the words “day” and “May” in this citation.

2. Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,

In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells–

Of the bells, bells, bells–

To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells–

Bells, bells, bells–

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

(“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe)

Edgar Allen employed rhyme in many of his poems. In “The Bells”, Poe uses rhyme not only to end lines, but also in the middle of lines, like his rhyme of “rolling” and “tolling”, in the middle of two adjacent lines.

He also uses the rhyme of “moaning” and “groaning” in the same line.

This example of rhyme adds to the rhythm of the poem in that it drives the reader forward, just like the tolling of the bells compels the listener to act.

3. Fate hired me once to play a villain’s part.

I did it badly, wasting valued blood;

Now when the call is given to the good

It is that knave who answers in my heart.

(“Between the Acts” by Stanley Kunitz)

Stanley Kunitz had an interesting career in poetry. He was born in 1905 and died in 2006; his poetry changed with the times, paralleling the popularity of strict forms in his early work while his later work was only written in free verse.

This short poem, “Between the Acts” was published in 1943 and is still analytical of the first half of his career in which rhyme played a large part.

Nevertheless, he was previously turning toward more free verse and less rhyme at this time.

In this poem Kunitz rhymes “part” with “heart”, but As well makes use of the near-rhyme “blood” and “good,” which can as well be considered an eye rhyme.

4. Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

(“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost)

Robert Frost is related to Stanley Kunitz in that he makes use of examples of rhyme in a few of his poetry whereas in others he forewent rhyme all in all.

A lot of his most renowned poems, such as “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Fire and Ice,” and “The Road Not Taken” all contain rhyme.

Nevertheless, other famous poems like “Mending Wall” and “Birches” do not restrain rhyme.

In this selection, Frost rhymes the words “know,” “though,” and “snow.”

Thanks for reaching to this point marking the end of this lecture.

Your Lecture Master:

Mst. Ugonwanne Joshua