MODULE 7: THE RISE AND FALL, AND RISE AGAIN OF RHYME

The learning objectives of this module are:

• To understand rhymes and how they are created, and the different types of rhyme including End Rhyme, Internal Rhyme, Feminine Rhyme, Masculine Rhyme and Identical Rhyme.
• To briefly explore the use of rhyme scheme in the construction and composition of a poem.
  

INTRODUCTION

Often, when most people think of poetry, they still tend to think of rhyming poetry, but, as we have already explored in earlier modules, poetry does not need to rhyme. In fact, during much of the 20th and 21st century, rhyming poetry had fallen out of favour. This is mainly because rhyming poetry is seen to be too restrictive with word choice, movement and meaning. But learning how to use different rhymes, and practising adding rhymes into your poetry, will make you focus much more on choosing the right words and the sounds of those words, which therefore, will ultimately make you a better poet.

In this module we will explore in more detail rhyming and the different rhyming patterns, and how these patterns have been used by some of the greatest poets in the world. We will also put rhyming into an historical context, and learn how rhymes and rhyming are still used by many contemporary poets of today.

CHANGING LANGUAGE TO SUIT A POEM

In the past, poets would often invert the language of the poem; changing the generally accepted order of subject/verb/object, in order to accommodate a rhyme.

For example in Samuel Coleridge's (1772 - 1834) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the last sentence is inverted to continue the rhyme:

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,

'There was a ship,' quoth he.

'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

We may consider some rhyming poems from the past as works of art, and beautiful representations of early forms poetry such as the sonnet, ballad or rondeau, but we don't necessarily equate them with modern poetry. And, for most contemporary poets, changing structures or inverting sentences in order for a poem to rhyme seems old-fashioned and awkward, and often makes the poem unnatural sounding. For many modern poets, rhyming is now often more connected to limericks, nursery rhymes or even advertising jingles than serious poetry, and argue that there are other more modern ways of writing a poem. But rhyming is not wrong, and a great many poets today still use rhyme in some form or other, and for many, rhymes add a musical component to a poem, often linking ideas and images in a unique and distinctive way.

RHYMING

Rhymes are created through the repetition of similar or the same sounds, typically in the syllables in the middle or at the end of a verse, and in general following the word's last stressed syllable e.g. 'boot' and 'suit', 'mat' and 'splat,' and were often used to add particular emphasis to words or phrases, or as a way to bring finality to a piece of work or an idea, for example:

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

By William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616).

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;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Rhyming was a dominant feature of most poetry, and an effective way of highlighting its differences to prose. However, as time passed, poets wanted to develop and expand the boundaries of poetry, and explore different ideas and patterns to build the rhythm and beat of their work.

FREE VERSE

Free verse is said to have originated in France in the 1880s, and became popular during the American Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, with many American poets including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and Louise May Alcott exploring this style. While across the Atlantic, the English-language poets experimenting with free verse included; T. S. Eliot, T. E. Hulme and Ezra Pound. Free verse grew in popularity even further in the '60s, when poets from the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso embraced this style as a powerful way of highlighting their messages and stories.

A Glimpse

By Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

Autumn

By T. E. Hulme (1883 - 1917)

A touch of cold in the Autumn night -

I walked abroad,

And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge

Like a red-faced farmer.

I did not stop to speak, but nodded,

And round about were the wistful stars

With white faces like town children.

FORMALISM

Formalism, a movement to return traditional forms of verse in rhyme, metre and stanza symmetry, emerged in the late 20th century as a way to counter the rapid growth in popularity of free verse, and today this school of thought still continues with 'neo-formalists' such as Molly Peacock, Mark Jarman, Dana Gioia and Phillis Levin.

The End of the World

By Dana Gioia (Born 1950)

(Lines 1 - 4)

“We're going,” they said, “to the end of the world.” 

So they stopped the car where the river curled, 

And we scrambled down beneath the bridge 

On the gravel track of a narrow ridge.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF RHYME

Poets use various types of rhyme in specific ways to unify a poem, to add emphasis, and to evoke meaning. There are seven main types of rhyme:

THE EVOLUTION OF THE RHYME

Although rhymes in poetry are often viewed as old fashioned, they are of course, very important in many modern forms of poetry, for example Rap, which often includes rhyming couplets and internal rhymes. Rhyming multiple times with each couplet is a deliberate technique of many rappers to redirect the listener's ears to the rhymes themselves. Not just for hip hop artists, but for the vast majority of songwriters, rhyme is still a hugely relevant and important part of their art form.

Only Fear of Death

Tupac Shakur (1971 - 1996)

Don't mention funerals I'm stressin', and goin' nutty

And reminiscin' 'bout them niggaz that murdered my buddy

I wonder when will I be happy, ain't nothin' funny

Flashbacks of bustin' caps, anything for money

Shake Your Rump

Beastie Boys

Got arrested at the Mardi Gras for jumping on a float

My man MCA's got a beard like a billy goat

Oowah oowah is my disco call

MCA hu-huh, I'm gettin' rope y'all

Routines, I bust, and the rhymes that I write

And I'll be busting routines and rhymes all night

Like eating burgers or chicken or you'll be picking your nose

I'm on time homie that's how it goes



CONCLUSION

We hope you have enjoyed this 7th Module. In this module, we have looked at how rhymes are created, and the different types of rhymes, as well as some examples of rhyming poetry.



MODULE 8

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