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RHYME , more correctly spelt RIME, from a Provencal word rim (its customary See also:English spelling is due to a confusion with See also:rhythm), a See also:literary See also:ornament or See also:device consisting of an identity of See also:sound in the terminal syllables of two or more words. In the See also:art of versification it signifies the repetition of a sound at the end of two or more lines in a single See also:composition. This artifice was practically unknown to the ancients, and, when it occurs, or seems to occur, in the See also:works of classic See also:Greek and Latin poets, it must be considered to be accidental. The natural tendency of the writer of See also:verse unconsciously to repeat a sound, however, is shown by the fact that there have been discovered nearly one thousand lines in the writings of See also:Virgil where the final syllable rhymes with a central one, thus
Bella per Emathios plus quam civilia See also:campos.
It is more than doubtful, however, whether the difference of stress would. not prevent this from See also:sounding as a rhyme in ou See also:antique See also:ear, and the phenomenon results more from the
RHYME
contingencies of See also:grammar than from intention on the See also:part of the poet. Conscious rhyme belongs to the See also:early See also:medieval periods of monkish literature, and the name given to lines with an intentional rhyme in the See also:middle is Leonine verse, the invention being attributed to a probably apocryphal See also:- MONK (O.Eng. munuc; this with the Teutonic forms, e.g. Du. monnik, Ger. Witch, and the Romanic, e.g. Fr. moine, Ital. monacho and Span. monje, are from the Lat. monachus, adaptedfrom Gr. µovaXos, one living alone, a solitary; Own, alone)
- MONK (or MONCK), GEORGE
- MONK, JAMES HENRY (1784-1856)
- MONK, MARIA (c. 1817—1850)
monk Leoninus or Leonius, who is supposed to be the author of a See also:history of the Old Testament preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale of See also:Paris. This " history " is composed in Latin verses, all of which rhyme in the centre. Another very famous poem in Leonine rhyme is the " De Contemptu Mundi " of See also:Bernard of See also:Cluny, which was printed. at See also:Bremen in 1595• Rhyme exists to satisfy the ear by the richness of repeated sound. In the beginnings of See also:modern verse, See also:alliteration, a repetition of a consonant, satisfied the listener. A further ornament was discovered when assonance, a repetition of the vowel-sounds, was invented. Finally, both of these were combined to procure a full identity of sound in the entire syllable, and rhyme took its See also:place in See also:prosody. When this identity of sound occurs in the last syllable of a verse it is the typical end-rhyme of modern See also:European See also:poetry. See also:Recent See also:criticism has been inclined to look upon the See also:African See also:- CHURCH
- CHURCH (according to most authorities derived from the Gr. Kvpcaxov [&wµa], " the Lord's [house]," and common to many Teutonic, Slavonic and other languages under various forms—Scottish kirk, Ger. Kirche, Swed. kirka, Dan. kirke, Russ. tserkov, Buig. cerk
- CHURCH, FREDERICK EDWIN (1826-1900)
- CHURCH, GEORGE EARL (1835–1910)
- CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM (1815–189o)
- CHURCH, SIR RICHARD (1784–1873)
church-Latin of the See also:age of See also:Tertullian as the starting-point of modern rhyme, and it is probable that the ingenuities of priests, invented to aid worshippers in See also:hearing and singing See also:long pieces of Latin verse in the See also:ritual of the See also:Catholic church produced the earliest conscious poems in rhyme. Moreover, not to give too See also:great importance to the Leonine hexameters which have been mentioned above, it is certain that by the 4th See also:century a school of rhymed sacred poetry had come into existence, classical examples of which we still possess in the " Stabat Mater " and the " See also:Dies Irae." In the course of the middle ages, alliteration, assonance and end-rhyme held the See also:- FIELD (a word common to many West German languages, cf. Ger. Feld, Dutch veld, possibly cognate with O.E. f olde, the earth, and ultimately with root of the Gr. irAaror, broad)
- FIELD, CYRUS WEST (1819-1892)
- FIELD, DAVID DUDLEY (18o5-1894)
- FIELD, EUGENE (1850-1895)
- FIELD, FREDERICK (18o1—1885)
- FIELD, HENRY MARTYN (1822-1907)
- FIELD, JOHN (1782—1837)
- FIELD, MARSHALL (183 1906)
- FIELD, NATHAN (1587—1633)
- FIELD, STEPHEN JOHNSON (1816-1899)
- FIELD, WILLIAM VENTRIS FIELD, BARON (1813-1907)
field without a See also:rival in See also:vernacular poetry. There is no such thing, it may broadly be said, as medieval verse in which one or other of these distinguishing ornaments is not employed. After the 14th century, in the See also:north of See also:Europe, and indeed everywhere except in See also:Spain, where assonance held a powerfut position, end-rhyme became universal and formed a distinctive indication of metrical construction. It was not until the invention of See also:Blank Verse (q.v.) that rhyme found a modern rival, and in spite of the successes of this See also:instrument rhyme has held its own, at all events for non-dramatic verse, in the See also:principal literature of Europe. Certain forms of poetry are almost inconceivable without rhyme. For instance, efforts have been made to compose rhymeless sonnets, but the result has been, either that the piece of blank verse produced is not in any sense a See also:sonnet, or else that by some artifice the See also:appearance of rhyme has been retained. In the heyday of Elizabethan literature a serious See also:attempt was made in See also:England to reject rhyme altogether, and to return to the quantitative See also:measures of the ancients. The See also:prime mover in this See also:heresy was not a poet at all, but a pedantic grammarian of See also:Cambridge, See also:Gabriel See also:Harvey (1545 ?–1630). He considered himself a great innovator, and for a See also:short See also:- TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
- TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
- TIME, STANDARD
time he actually seduced no less melodious a poet than See also:Edmund See also:Spenser to abandon rhyme and adopt a See also:system of accented hexameters and trimeters. Spenser even wrote largely in those measures, but the greater portion of his experiments in this See also:kind, of which The Dying See also:Pelican is supposed to have been one, have' disappeared. From 1576 to 1579 the See also:genius of Spenser seems to have been obscured by this See also:error of See also:taste, but he shook it off completely when he composed The Shepherd's See also:Calendar. Harvey considered See also:Richard Stonyhurst (1547–1618) the most loyal of his disciples, and this author published in 1582 four books of the Aeneid translated into rhymeless hexameters on Harvey's See also:plan. The result remains, a portent of ugliness and cacophony. A far greater poet, See also:- THOMAS
- THOMAS (c. 1654-1720)
- THOMAS (d. 110o)
- THOMAS, ARTHUR GORING (1850-1892)
- THOMAS, CHARLES LOUIS AMBROISE (1811-1896)
- THOMAS, GEORGE (c. 1756-1802)
- THOMAS, GEORGE HENRY (1816-187o)
- THOMAS, ISAIAH (1749-1831)
- THOMAS, PIERRE (1634-1698)
- THOMAS, SIDNEY GILCHRIST (1850-1885)
- THOMAS, ST
- THOMAS, THEODORE (1835-1905)
- THOMAS, WILLIAM (d. 1554)
Thomas See also:Campion (1575–1620), returned to the attack, and in a See also:tract published in 1602 advocated the remission of rhyme from lyrical poetry. He, by dint of a prodigious effort, produced some unrhymed odes which were not without See also:charm, but the best critics of the time, such as See also:Daniel, repudiated the innovation, and rhyme continued to have no serious rival except blank verse.
There have, from time to time, been made experiments of a similar nature, notably by See also:Tennyson, but rhyme has retained its sway as an essential ornament of all English poetry which is not in blank verse. There have been not a few poems composed, principally in the nineteenth century, in rhymeless hexameters, and even the elegiac See also:couplet has been attempted. The experiments of Long-See also:fellow, See also:Clough, See also:Kingsley and others demand respectful See also:notice, but it is more than doubtful whether any one of these, even the mellifluous See also:Andromeda of the last-named writer, is really in See also:harmony with the See also:national prosody.
In See also:Germany a very determined attack on rhyme was made early in the seventeenth century, particularly by a See also:group of aesthetic critics in the Swiss See also:universities. They attacked rhyme as an artless See also:species of sing-See also:song, which deadened and destroyed the true See also:movement of See also:melody in the rhythm. The See also:argument of this group of critics had a deep See also:influence in See also:German practice, and led to the composition of a vast number of works in unrhymed measures, in few of which, however, is now found a See also:music which justifies the experiment. See also:Lessing recalled the German poets to a sense of the beauty and value of rhyme, but the popularity of See also:Klopstock and his imitators continued to exercise a great influence. See also:Goethe and See also:Schiller, without abandoning rhyme altogether, permitted themselves a great See also:liberty in the employment of unrhymed measures and in See also:imitation of classic metres. This was carried to still greater lengths by Platen and See also:Heine, the rhymeless rhythm of the last of whom was imitated in English verse by See also:Matthew See also:Arnold and others, not without an occasional measure of success. In See also:France, on. the other See also:hand, the See also:empire of rhyme has always been triumphant, and in See also:French literature the See also:idea of rhymeless verse can scarcely be said to exist. There the rime pleine or riche, in which not merely the sound but the emphasis is perfectly identical, is insisted upon, and a poet who rhymed as Mrs See also:Browning did, or made " flying " an See also:equivalent in sound to " See also:Zion," would be deemed illiterate.
In French, two species of rhyme are accepted, the feminine and the masculine. Feminine rhymes are those which end in a See also:mute e, masculine those which do not so end. The Alexandrine, which is the classical See also:metre in French, is built up on what are known as rimes croisees, that is to say a couplet of masculine rhymes followed by a couplet of feminine, and that again by masculine. This See also:rule is unknown to the medieval poetry of France.
In See also:Italian literature the excessive abundance and facility of rhyme has led to a See also:rebellion against its use, which is much more reasonable than that of the Germans, whose strenuous See also:language seems to See also:call for an emphatic uniformity of sound. But it was the influence of German See also:aesthetics which forced upon the notice of See also:Leopardi the possibility of introducing rhymeless lyrical measures into Italian verse, an innovation which be carried out with remarkable hardihood and success. The rhymeless odes of See also:Carducci are also worthy of admiration, and may be compared by the student with those of Heine and of Matthew Arnold respectively. Nevertheless, in Italian also, the ear demands the See also:pleasure of the full reiterated sound, and the experiments of the eminent poets who have rejected it have claimed respect rather than sympathy or imitation. At the See also:close of the 19th century, particularly in France, where the rules of rhyme had been most rigid, an effort to modify and minimise these restraints was widely made. There is no doubt that the See also:laws of rhyme, like other artificial regulations, may be too severe, but there is no See also:evidence that the natural beauty which pure rhyme introduces into poetry is losing its hold on the human ear or is in any real danger of being superseded by See also:accent or rhythm.
See See also:Joseph B. See also:Mayer, A Handbook of Modern English Metre (Cambridge, 1903); J. See also:Minor, Neuhochdeutsche Metrik (See also:Strassburg, 1893) ; J. B. Schutze, Versuch einer Theorie See also:des Reimes nach Inhalt and See also:Form (See also:Magdeburg, 18o2). (E.
End of Article: RHYME
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