Part 1 — CHAPTER I. DEFINITIONS STANZA, RHYME, VARIETIES OF RHYME

§ 214. The strophe in ancient poetry, and the stanza in mediaeval and modern analogues and derivatives of that poetic form, are combinations of single lines into a unity of which the lines are the parts. The word strophe[180] in its literal sense means a turning, and originally denoted the return of the song to the melody with which it began. The melody, which is a series of musical sounds arranged in accordance with the laws of rhythm and modulation, has in poetry its counterpart in a parallel series of significant sounds or words arranged according to the laws of rhythm; and the melodic termination of the musical series has its analogue in the logical completion of the thought. But within the stanza itself again there are well-marked resting places, divisions closely connected with the periods or sentences of which the stanza is made up. The periods are built up of rhythmical sequences which are combinations of single feet, dominated by a rhythmical main accent. In shorter lines the end of the rhythmical sequence as a rule coincides with the end of the verse; but if the line is of some length it generally contains two or even more rhythmical sequences.[181] The essential constituents of the stanza are the lines; and the structure of the stanzas connected together to make up a poem is in classical as well as in mediaeval and modern poetry subject to the rule that the lines of each stanza of the poem must resemble those of the other stanzas in number, length (i.e. the number of feet or measures), rhythmical structure, and arrangement. (This rule, however, is not without exceptions in modern poetry.) In the versification of the ancients it was sufficient for the construction of a strophic poem that its verses should be combined in a certain number of groups which resembled each other in these respects. In modern poetry, also, such an arrangement of the verses may be sufficient for the construction of stanzas; but this is only exceptionally the case, and, as a rule, only in imitation of the classic metrical forms (cf. §§ 212–13). The stanza, as it is found in the mediaeval and modern poetry of the nations of western Europe, exhibits an additional structural element of the greatest importance, viz. the connexion of the single lines of the stanza by end-rhyme; and with regard to this a rule analogous to the previously mentioned law regarding the equality in number and nature of verses forming a stanza holds good, viz. that the arrangement of the rhymes which link the verses together to form stanzas, must be the same in all the stanzas of a poem.

§ 215. Of the three chief kinds of rhyme, in its widest sense (mentioned § 10), i.e. alliteration, assonance, and end-rhyme, only the last need be taken into consideration here. There are, indeed, some poems in Old English in which end-rhyme is used consciously and intentionally (see §§ 40–1), but it was never used in that period for the construction of stanzas. This took place first in Middle English under the influence and after the model of the Low Latin and the Romanic lyrics.

The influence of the Low Latin lyrical and hymnodic poetry on the Old English stanzas is easily explicable from the position of the Latin language as the international tongue of the church and of learning during the Middle Ages. The influence of the lyrical forms of Provence and of Northern France on Middle English poetry was rendered possible by various circumstances. In the first place, during the crusades the nations of Western Europe frequently came into close contact with each other. A more important factor, however, was the Norman Conquest, in consequence of which the Norman-French language during a considerable time predominated in the British Isles and acted as a channel of communication of literature with the continent. One historical event deserves in this connexion special mention—the marriage in the year 1152 of Henry, Duke of Normandy (who came to the throne of England in 1154), and Eleonore of Poitou, widow of Louis VII of France; in her train Bernard de Ventadorn, the troubadour, came to England, whither many other poets and minstrels soon followed him, both in the reign of Henry and of his successor Richard Coeur de Lion, who himself composed songs in the Provençal and in the French language. The effect of the spread of songs like these in Provençal and French in England was to give a stimulus and add new forms to the native lyrical poetry which was gradually reviving. At first indeed the somewhat complicated strophic forms of the Provençal and Northern French lyrics did not greatly appeal to English tastes, and were little adapted to the less flexible character of the English tongue. Hence many of the more elaborate rhyme-systems of Provençal and Northern French lyrical versification were not imitated at all in English; others were reproduced only in a modified and often very original form; and only the simpler forms, which occurred mostly in Low Latin poetry as well, were imitated somewhat early and with little or no modification.

§ 216. The end-rhyme, which is so important a factor in the formation of stanzas, has many varieties, which may be classified in three ways:

A. According to the number of the rhyming syllables.

B. According to the quality of these syllables.

C. According to the position of the rhyme in relation to the line and the stanza.

Intimately connected with this last point is the use of rhyme as an element in the structure of the stanza.

A. With regard to the number of the syllables, rhymes are divided into three classes, viz.:

1. The monosyllabic or single rhyme (also called masculine), e.g. hand: land, face: grace.

2. The disyllabic or double rhyme (also called feminine), as ever: never, brother: mother, treasure: measure, suppression: transgression; or owe me: know me Shakesp. Ven. and Ad. 523–5; bereft me: left me ib. 439–41. The terms masculine and feminine originated with the Provençal poets and metrists, who were the first among the people of Western Europe to theorize on the structure of the verses which they employed, and introduced these terms in reference to the forms of the Provençal adjective, which were monosyllabic or accented on the last syllable in the masculine, and disyllabic or accented on the last syllable but one in the feminine: bos–bona, amatz–amada.

3. The trisyllabic, triple, or tumbling rhyme, called gleitender (i.e. gliding) Reim in German. Of this variety of rhyme, which is less common than the two others, examples are gymnastical: ecclesiastical Byron, Beppo, 3; quality: liberality ib. 30; láugh of them: hálf of them ib. 98. Rhymes like this last, which are made up of more words than two, might, like those given above under the disyllables, such as owe me: know me, also form a separate sub-species as compound rhymes, as they resemble the broken rhymes (cf. § 217, B. 3) and have, like these, mostly a burlesque effect.

§ 217. B. According to the second principle of classification, by the quality of the rhyming syllables, the species of rhyme are as follows:

1. The rich rhyme (in French rime riche), i.e. two words completely alike in sound but unlike in meaning rhyming with each other. Of this three special cases are possible:

a. Two simple words rhyming with each other, as londe (inf.): londe (noun) K. Horn, 753–4; armes (arms): armes (weapons) Chaucer, Compleynt of Mars, ll. 76–7; steepe (adj.): steepe (inf.) Spenser, F. Q. I. i. 39; sent (perf.): sent (=scent, noun) ib. 43; can (noun); can (verb) ib. I. iv. 22, &c. In the earlier Modern English poetry we find many rhymes of this class between words that are alike or similar in sound, but of different spelling, as night: knight, foul: fowl, gilt: guilt, hart: heart, &c. (cf. Ellis, ‘Shakespere’s Puns’ in Early Engl. Pron. iii. 920, iv. 1018).

b. A simple and a compound word rhyming together, as leue: bileue K. Horn, 741–2; like: sellike Sir Tristr. 1222–4; ymake: make Wright’s Spec.. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 27, ll. 16–18; apart: part Spenser, F. Q. I. ii. 21, hold: behold ib. I. iii. 40; here also identity of sound and difference of spelling is possible, as renew: knew ib. I. iii. 25.

c. Two compound words rhyming together, as recorde: accorde Chaucer, C. T. Prol. 828–9; affirmed: confirmed Wyatt, p. 98; expeld: compeld Spenser, F. Q. I. i. 5.

2. The identical rhyme. This is, properly speaking, no rhyme at all, but only a repetition of the same word intended as a substitute for rhyme; and therefore was and is avoided by careful and skilful poets; sette: sette K. Horn, 757–8; other: other Wyatt, p. 45; down: down ib. p. 194; sight: sight Spenser, F. Q. I. i. 45, &c.

3. The broken rhyme has two sub-species:

a. In the first of these one part of the rhyme is composed of two or three words (unlike the rhymes spoken of under A. 3, consisting of two words each), e.g. time: bi me K. Horn, 533–4; scolis: fole is, Chaucer, Troil. i. 634–5; tyrant: high rent Moore, Fudge Fam., Letter iv; wide as: Midas ib.; well a day: melody ib. x; Verona: known a Byron, Beppo, 17; sad knee: Ariadne ib. 28; endure a: seccatura ib. 31; estrangement: change meant ib. 53; quote is: notice ib. 48; exhibit ’em: libitum ib. 70; Julia: truly a: newly a Byron, Don Juan, ii. 208.

b. In the second sub-species the rhyme to a common word is formed by the first part only of a longer word, the remainder standing at the beginning of the following line. This sort of rhyme seems to be unknown in Middle English literature; modern poets, however, use it not unfrequently in burlesque, as well as the previously mentioned sub-species, e.g. kind: blind-(ness) Pope, Satire iii. 67; forget-(ful): debt ib. iv. 13; beg: egge-(shells) ib. iv. 104; nice hence-(forward): licence Byron, Don Juan, i. 120; Thackeray, Ballads, p. 133:

4. The double rhyme. This is always trisyllabic like that mentioned under A. 3; but there is a difference between them, in that the two closing syllables of the gliding rhyme stand outside the regular rhythm of the verse; while the first and the third syllable of the double rhyme bear the second last and last arsis of the verse.

Chaucer, Troil. i. 683–4.

This sort of rhyme does on the whole not very often occur in Modern English poetry, and even in Middle English literature we ought to regard it as accidental. The same is the case with another (more frequent) species, namely,

5. The extended rhyme, in which an unaccented syllable preceding the rhyme proper, or an unaccented word in thesis, forms part of the rhyme, e.g. biforne: iborne Chaucer, Troil. ii. 296–8; in joye: in Troye ib. i. 118–19; to quyken: to stiken ib. 295–7; the Past: me last Byron, Ch. Harold, ii. 96; the limb: the brim ib. iii. 8, &c.

6. The unaccented rhyme, an imperfect kind of rhyme, because only the unaccented syllables of disyllabic or polysyllabic words, mostly of Germanic origin and accentuation, rhyme together, and not their accented syllables as the ordinary rule would demand, e.g. láweles, lóreless, námeless; wrécful, wróngful, sínful Song of the Magna Charta, ll. 30–2, 66–8; many rhymes of this kind occur in the alliterative-rhyming long line combined into stanzas.[182] In Modern English we find this kind of rhyme pretty often in Wyatt[183]; e.g.:

p. 56.

p. 149.

Such rhymes in dactylic feet, as in the following verses by Moore (Beauty and Song ll. 1–4),

are not harsh, because in this case the unaccented syllable which bears the rhyme is separated from the accented syllable by a thesis. A variety of the unaccented rhyme is called the accented-unaccented; examples have been quoted before in the chapter treating of the alliterative-rhyming long line (§§ 61, 62). In the same place some other verses of the above-quoted song of Moore are given, showing the admissibility of rhymes between gliding or trisyllabic and masculine rhyming-syllables or -words (mélodý: thée, Róse bè: thée). In these cases the subordinate accent of the third syllable in mélody or the word bè in the equally long Róse bè is strong enough to make a rhyme with thee possible, although this last word has a strong syntactical and rhythmical accent. As a rule such accented-unaccented rhymes, in which masculine endings rhyme with feminine endings, are very harsh, as is often the case in Wyatt’s poems (cf. Alscher, pp. 123–6), e.g.

p. 7.

§ 218. C. According to the third principle of classification, by the position of the rhyming syllable, the varieties of rhyme are as follows:

1. The sectional rhyme, so called because it consists of two rhyming words within one section or hemistich.[184] This kind of rhyme occurs now and then even in Old English poetry, but it is usually unintentional (cf. §§ 40–2), e.g. sǣla and mǣla; þæt is sōð metod Beow. 1611; in Middle English literature it is frequent, as in Barbour’s Bruce: and till Ingland agayne is gayne i. 144, iii. 185; That eftyr him dar na man ga iii. 166. In Modern English poetry this kind of rhyme is more frequent, and often intentionally used for artistic effect:

Walter Scott, Song from Kenilworth.

2. Very closely related to this is the inverse rhyme (as Guest called it), which occurs when the last accented syllable of the first hemistich of a verse rhymes with the first accented syllable of the second hemistich:

This kind of rhyme is generally met with in the popular national long line of four stresses. Guest gives a much wider range to it. But when it occurs in other kinds of verse, as in the iambic verse of four or five feet, it is not to be looked upon as an intentional rhyme, but only as a consonance caused by rhetorical repetition (the examples are quoted by Guest):

And art thou gone and gone for ever? Burns.

I followed fast, but faster did he fly. Shak. Mids. III. ii. 416.

3. The Leonine[185] rhyme or middle rhyme, which recurs throughout the Old English Rhyming Poem, and is occasionally used in other Old English poems. This rhyme connects the two hemistichs of an alliterative line with each other by end-rhyme and, at the same time, causes the gradual breaking up of it into two short lines; we find it in certain parts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in Layamon, in the Proverbs of Alfred, and other poems, e.g.: his sedes to sowen, his medes to mowen Prov. 93–4; þus we uerden þere, and for þi beoþ nu here Lay. 1879–80. See §§ 49, 57–58, 78 for examples from Middle and Modern English literature of this kind of rhyme (called by the French rimes plates) as well as of the following kind, when used in even-beat metres.

4. The interlaced rhyme (rime entrelacée), by means of which two long-lined rhyming couplets are connected a second time in corresponding places (before the caesura) by another rhyme, so that they seem to be broken up into four short verses of alternate or cross-rhyme (a b a b), e.g. in the latter part of Robert Mannyng’s Rhyming Chronicle (from p. 69 of Hearne’s edition), or in the second version of Saynt Katerine (cf. the quotations, §§ 77, 78, 150). When, however, long verses without interlaced rhyme are broken up only by the arrangement of the writer or printer into short lines, we have

5. The intermittent rhyme, whose formula is a b c b (cf. p. 196). Both sorts of rhyme may also be used, of course, in other kinds of verse, shorter or longer; as a rule, however, the intermittent rhyme is employed for shorter, the alternate or cross-rhyme for longer verses, as, for example, those of five feet.

6. The enclosing rhyme, corresponding to the formula a b b a, e.g. in spray, still, fill, May, as in the quartets of the sonnet formed after the Italian model (cf. below, Book II, chap. ix). This sort of rhyme does not often occur in Middle English poetry; but we find it later, e.g. in the tail or veer of a variety of stanza used by Dunbar and Kennedy in their Flyting Poem.

7. The tail-rhyme (in French called rime couée, in German Schweifreim), the formula of which is a a b c c b. (For a specimen see § 79.)

This arrangement of rhymes originated from two long lines of the same structure, formed into a couplet by end-rhyme, each of the lines being divided into three sections (whence the name versus tripertiti caudati). This couplet, the formula of which was – a – a – b || – c – c – b, is, in the form in which it actually appears broken up into a stanza of six short lines, viz. two longer couplets a a, c c, and a pair of shorter lines rhyming together as b b, the order of rhymes being a a b c c b. (For remarks on the origin of this stanza see § 240.)

§ 219. As to the quality of the rhyme, purity or exactness, of course, is and always has been a chief requirement. It is, however, well known that the need for this exactness is frequently disregarded not only in Old and Middle English poetry (cf. e.g. the Old English assonances meant for rhymes, § 40, or the often very defective rhymes of Layamon, § 45) but even in Modern English poetry. Many instructive examples of defective rhymes from Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, and Dryden are given by A.J. Ellis, On Early Engl. Pronunciation, iii. 858–74, 953–66, iv. 1033–9.

From these collections of instances we see how a class of imperfect rhymes came into existence in consequence of the change in the pronunciation of certain vowels, from which it resulted that many pairs of words that originally rhymed together, more or less perfectly, ceased to be rhymes at all to the ear, although, as the spelling remained unaltered, they retained in their written form a delusive appearance of correspondence. These ‘eye-rhymes’, as they are called, play an important part in English poetry, being frequently admitted by later poets, who continue to rhyme together words such as eye: majesty Pope, Temple of Fame, 202–3; crowns: owns ib. 242–3; own’d: found id. Wife of Bath, 32–3, notwithstanding the fact that the vowel of the two words, which at first formed perfect rhymes, had long before been diphthongized or otherwise changed while the other word still kept its original vowel-sound.