A History of English VersificationSchipper, J. (Jakob)
History
A History of English Versification
Schipper, J. (Jakob)
English language -- Versification; English poetry -- History and criticism
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.:
_Consider well thy ground and thy beginning;
And gives the moon her horns, and her eclipsing._
p. 56.
_With horrible fear, as one that greatly dreadeth
A wrongful death, and justice alway seeketh._
p. 149.
Such rhymes in dactylic feet, as in the following verses by Moore
(_Beauty and Song_ ll. 1-4),
_Dówn in yon súmmer vale,
Whére the rill flóws,
Thús said the Níghtingale
Tó his loved Róse_,
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.
_So chánced mé that évery pássión
Wherebý if thát I láugh at ány séason._ 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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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