Poetry Hacks

Rhyme

What is it? Everyone knows a rhyme when they see it. Technically, two syllables rhyme when their vowels and the following consonant (if there is one) sounds the same. Where needed to distinguish it from other types of rhyme, this may be called full rhyme or masculine rhyme . What effect does it usually have? Rhymes connect words together in order to reinforce meaning, or to make a contrast. Rhyming always emphasises words, but the second word of the rhyming pair, called the clinching word, carries more emphasis than the first. What else should I look out for? Together with metre and its organisation into lines (lineation), rhyme is one of the most important ways in which poems are given a sense of order and harmony, elevating poetry above the randomness of everyday speech. Reading a rhyming poem of usual length creates a sense of expectation from the reader; when a rhyme is missing – or a half rhyme used in its place – the impact is always worth exploring.

An example of how it works … ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ by John Keats:

I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful —a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild

In this stanza the knight recounts meeting his 'dame', a femme fatale who will go on to enslave him. The rhyme creates a contrast between the innocent sounding 'child' with the dangerous-sounding 'wild'; this helps to reinforce our first impression of this alluring 'lady', outwardly attractive but bewitching and malevolent.

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