1C. POETRY Rhyme Rhyme Scheme

Rhyme and Rhyme Scheme
What is rhyme?
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in
two or more words and is most often used in
poetry and songs.
Example of rhyming words:

bat – cat
sit – fit
desire - conspire
Rhyme Scheme
Rhyme scheme refers to the patterns of rhyme
in a stanza or poem.
The rhyme scheme is shown by applying to
each rhyme the same letter of the alphabet.
Whenever Richard Cory went to town a
We the people on the pavement looked at him b
He was a gentleman from sole to crown a
Clean favoured, and imperially slim b
(Edwin Arlington Robinson)

• Because the word town at the end of the first
line rhymes with the word crown at the end on
the third line, they are both labelled letter: a.
• The word him at the end of line two also
rhymes with slim in the fourth line (Near
rhyme) and we indicate this by using the next
letter of the alphabet, which is b.
• The rhyme scheme of this short stanza
therefore is abab.
Couplet
• If two consecutive lines of a poem rhyme, they are
called a couplet.
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed a

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud a
(Percy Bysshe Shelley)
With such superb resource and self-possession

a
Canada made it through the long depression a
(Roy Daniels)
A speck that would have been beneath my sight a
On any but a paper sheet so white a
Set off across what I had written there b
And I had idly poised my pen in air b
(Robert Frost)
• These lines consist of rhyming couplets and
we write the rhyme scheme as aabb.
Quatrain
• A set of four rhyming lines is called a quatrain.
• Usual rhyme schemes of a quatrain are abab,
abcb, aaaa, or abba. For example, the poet
Blake in ‘Jerusalem’ uses an abcb scheme:
And did those feet in ancient time a
Walk upon England’s mountains green? b
And was the holy Lamb of God c
On England’s pleasant pastures seen? b
Sestet
• The sestet is a six-line stanza that can be
arranged in a numerous ways.
• Dyer uses a regular ababcc rhyme scheme in
the poem below:
The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall, a
The fly her spleen, the little spark his heat; b
The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small, a
And bees have stings, although they be not great; b
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs: c
And love is love, in beggars and in kings. c
Effects of rhyme in poetry
• Makes a poem sound pleasing to the ear and add a
musical quality.
• Can create an unpleasant sound for specific effect.
• Could emphasise certain words – very often
rhyming words are given a certain prominence.
• Can act as a kind of unifying influence on the
poem, drawing lines and stanzas together through
the pattern it imposes on them.
• It can give a poem an incantatory or ritualistic feel.
Effects of rhyme in poetry
• It can influence the rhythm of the poem.
• It can give a sense of finality –a rhyming couplet is often
used to give a sense of ‘ending’.
• It can exert a subconscious effect on the reader, drawing
together certain words or images, affecting the sound, or
adding emphasis in some way.
• Rhyme calls attention to words as sounds, which one can
enjoy for their own sake. One experiences aesthetic
pleasure and satisfaction from the matching of sounds
that occurs in rhyme.
Types of Rhyme
End Rhyme
• This is one of the commonest types of rhyme
and refers to the rhyme that occurs at the end
of lines.
A speck that would have been beneath my sight

On any but a paper sheet so white
(Robert Frost)
Masculine Rhyme
• When the final syllable of the rhyme is a
stressed syllable as in defeat/repeat, request/
invest.
• Such rhyming tends to create a pronounced or
emphatic effect.
• Example:
fly/sky; go/snow; die/sigh; done/sun;
sand/land; sing/ring
• Much of the emphasis that comes from masculine
rhymes derives from the fact that it allows the
rhyming of one-syllable words (which are always
stressed).
• Such single syllable rhyming tends to have a pointed
and telling impact, as in the opening of the poet,
Auden’s poem “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”:
Earth, receive an honoured guest
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Feminine Rhyme
• A rhyme in which the final syllable is unstressed
as in morrow/sorrow, finger/linger.
• Because the final syllable is unstressed, such
rhyming tends to produce a ‘falling away’ effect.
• Examples:
seeing/ being; stealthy/wealthy; distressing/
blessing; clerical/spherical; funny/money;
merited/inherited
Feminine Rhyme
Of a pool so pitch black, fell-frowning
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning
(Hopkins)
With such superb resource and self-possession

Canada made it through the long depression
(Roy Daniells)
Polysyllabic Rhyme
• When several syllables are part of the rhyme.
• Such elaborate rhyming will ‘call attention’ to
itself and is often used to create comic or
humorous effect, as Byron’s ‘intellectual/hen-
pecked you all’.
• Such rhyming is heavily emphasised as it
arrests the rhythm and flow of a poem quite
dramatically.
Slant/Para-rhyme
• Also known as partial rhyme, half rhyme or
imperfect rhyme.
• As the names suggest, it indicates sounds that
almost rhyme.
• For example, the final sound is the same, but
the preceding sound is different.
• Such rhyme creates a deliberately
uncomfortable, disconcerting effect.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
By his dead smile, I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand pains that vision’s face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground.
(Wilfred Owen)

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Rhyme and Rhyme Scheme

Example of rhyming words:

(Edwin Arlington Robinson)

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed a

With such superb resource and self-possession

A speck that would have been beneath my sight

With such superb resource and self-possession

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