Rhyme. Ways of rhyming

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The word "rhyme" has a complex etymology. It goes back to an old French concept meaning "succession". But perhaps the French word itself is a distorted borrowing from Latin, and the Latin lexeme, in turn, goes back to the ancient Greek language.

Modern schoolchildren get acquainted with such concepts as rhyme, ways of rhyming, however, this verse topic is much richer, and in general, many of its questions are accessible and interesting for a school student.

From the history of rhyme

In any case, the original meaning of the term was not the same as it is now. It was not about the phonetic similarity of the end of poetic lines, but about rhythmic order. It could not be otherwise, since ancient poetry, in principle, was not rhymed, the ways of rhyming there appeared only spontaneously, for example, they often slipped into the poetry of Catullus.

But it was still very far from theoretical understanding and, accordingly, to the requirements of rhyming. Poetry, including Russian, came to rhyme gradually, gradually increasing the number of rhymed lines.

Rhyme in modern Russian poetry

Today, rhyme is a recognized attribute of poetic speech, however, inIn poetry, especially Western European poetry, the reverse trend is also clearly visible - the rejection of rhymed verse. It is difficult to predict how powerful it will be, given that today we are witnessing a struggle between supporters and opponents of the "classic" rhyming verse.

In modern Russian poetry, it still dominates, both classical and modified methods of rhyming are used, and in the literary heritage of past centuries, in quantitative terms, the advantage of verse with rhymes over white was overwhelming.

Rhyme evaluation criteria

When talking about rhyme, there are a few common mistakes to avoid right away. First, it is necessary to abandon such a negative definition as "bad rhyme". In itself, it is neither good nor bad, it all depends on the tasks of the poem and on the contexts of culture. For example, in the 18th century, Trediakovsky demanded exclusively female rhymes from poets (emphasis on the penultimate syllable in a line), and considered masculine rhymes (emphasis on the last syllable) to be a sign of bad taste.

Today, this criterion, to put it mildly, does not work, and the clause, as well as the formal assessment of which rhyming methods are used by the author, is not a determining parameter, the main attention is paid to the depth of the work.

At the end of the 18th century, almost exclusively grammatical rhymes were considered “good”, that is, only the same parts of speech and grammatical forms were used. And today, many poets tend to avoid this as a sign of a poor poetic vocabulary. It,by the way, also a mistake, because in a number of cases it is the mediocrity of rhyme that is a necessary condition for an aesthetic effect. For example, in children's poetry, unexpected and spectacular combinations are most often not needed, the child's consciousness is not ready for their perception, he more easily feels the standard and simple ways. And this applies not only to children's poetry.

In A. Akhmatova's famous ballad "The Gray-Eyed King", the tragedy of losing a loved one is set off by the everydayness of everything that happens. And here, not only the actions and reactions of others are important, but also standard grammatical rhymes (found - left, wake up - take a look, etc.) and methods of rhyming.

Mayakovsky, however, insisted that the rhyme should be unexpected, attract the reader's attention, but this is not an absolute requirement. This is true in relation to the poetry of Mayakovsky himself and his like-minded people, who have a very strong constructivist beginning in poetry, respectively, the role of a deliberate device increases.

But in relation to poetry in general, this thesis is erroneous. It all depends on the artistic task. For example, the rhyming method “The Golden Grove Dissuaded” by S. Yesenin is traditional, this is a classic cross-rhyme, the first and third lines are female, and the second and fourth are male.

Yes, and in general the poem does not have any bright rhymes. But at the same time, it is an undoubted poetic masterpiece.

Limits of feeling rhyme

BIn Russian cultural perception, rhyme is recognized, as a rule, when the last stressed vowel and the consonant next to it coincide. In the English and German tradition, the stressed vowel suffices. That is, we do not consider the words “window” and “bucket” to rhyme, for example, but we perceive it as a rhyme “window - stain” or the names “Oknov - Vedrov”. However, in real poetry, there are also much more complex cases of matching line endings. For example, a poet can use dissonant rhyme when the line endings are not random, but the last stressed vowel is just different. Such, for example, is an ironic poem by A. Chebyshev with the characteristic title "Dissonance", clearly indicating the non-randomness of the reception:

If repentance comes over you, Especially when the moon is full –

You will have atonement for sins, And great discouragement will come.

The whole wife will immediately be caressed, Her breasts are brimming with tears.

From insomnia, books are leafed through…

Even the seeds will be shattered.

And then your soul will thaw, Though, of course, pretty risky, Because you might sweat, And you will have a sore throat.

Can this poem be called rhyming? From the point of view of the standard definition of rhyme, no, because the criteria for rhyme are violated. From the point of view of "territorial agreement", as the rhyme used to be called, - undoubtedly, because we have a clearly thought-out method of non-random uniformity of line endings.

Clauses

In general, according to the accepted "standard" of rhyme classificationusually described on various grounds. First, by the nature of the clause (the end of the line). In other words, according to where the last stress is. If in the last position, the rhyme is called masculine (again - blood), if in the penultimate position - feminine (peoples - freedom), if on the third syllable from the end - dactylic (cold - hungry). Very rarely, but there are also so-called hyperdactylic rhymes, when the last stress is located on the fourth and further syllable from the end (fettering - charming).

Position in stanza

It is about the position in the stanza that students are mainly told in the classroom while studying the topic “Rhyme. Ways of rhyming. Grade 5 of secondary school involves not only introductory, but also practical lessons.

According to the position in the stanza (most often we are talking about quatrains), the rhyme can be continuous (AAAA), cross (ABAB) - the cross rhyming method is the most obvious from the point of view of practical exercises in the analysis of rhymes, paired (AABB) and ring (ABBA).

In more complex stanzas, other combinations of rhymes are possible, for example, the classic construction of an octave stanza will look like this: ABABABSS.

Other grounds for classification

Often rhymes are classified on other grounds (phonetically rich, that is, sonorous, and phonetically poor; exact and approximate; monosyllabic and compound, that is, consisting of a combination of two words, for example, “we grow up to a hundred years old without old age ).

There is no single mandatory criterion for rhyme classifications, only the most popular bases are described here.