Perfect rhyme is what most poets strive for when composing poetry where a rhyme scheme is called for. It lends rhythm and harmony to the piece penned. Like the swimming teams at a gala where each swimmer has their own lane, so syllables are divided into accented vowel sounds, stronger sounding consonants per the metre in the line, and the supporting act (structure & auxiliary words, and unaccented vowel sounds). Each has a role to play when penning poetry.
Rhyme schemes generally refer to end-word (in a line of verse) rhymes, unless otherwise specified in the design format of a particular poetic form.
Perfect rhyme is where the final accented vowels and the succeeding consonants in the syllables sound similar, but the preceding consonants in each differ, e.g. SKy/High; evaNesce/transGRess (the stressed syllables are in boldface and the differing preceding consonants are in caps). It also called full rhyme, true rhyme, or exact rhyme.
Mono-rhyme, where the end rhymes of the verses/lines are identical per stanza, falls in the category of perfect rhyme. Perfect rhyme can be classified according to the number of syllables included in the rhyme, which is dictated by the location of the final stressed syllable.
- Single: A rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words (repent/foment).
- Double: A rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words
- (ocean/motion).
- Syllabic: A rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate syllables of the words, but these do not rhyme. The unstressed final syllables of the words do rhyme (goblin/maudlin; fiddle/bottle: the liquid consonant ‘le’).
- Dactylic: A rhyme in which the stress is on the antepenultimate (third from last) syllable (pluvial/induvial).
- Identical position: A rhyme where the stress falls at identical intervals in the end rhymes, eg, 4th from last (immeasurable/pleasurable).
- Compound: In rapping and poetry, multisyllabic rhymes (also known as compound rhymes, polysyllable rhymes, and sometimes colloquially in hip-hop as multis) are end rhymes that contain two or more syllables, (nails be/bails me/fails thee; Rings are in bad taste / Why crazy mad haste?).
Where two words appear to rhyme in the vowel sound, but when they are sounded out, for example, him/dim, they sound totally different. Like a square peg in a round hole, THEN THEY DON’T RHYME.
Various Types of Rhymes (Less than perfect)
- Identical rhymes are considered by some as less than perfect (rhyme) in English. Not only the vowels, but also the onset of the rhyming syllables, are identical, as in ‘gun’ and ‘begun’—the stress is on the same syllable, namely ‘u’. Another example is leave/believe. Or it is simply using the same word twice.
- Homophonic Rhyme: They are types of identical rhyme.
- 1. Homophones are a type of homonym that sound alike and have different meanings, but spelled differently, for example, vane/vain/vein.
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2. Homographs are words that have the same spelling, but have different meanings and different pronunciations. Certain words might change in their pronunciation depending on whether they are employed as a noun or a verb. For example: tear (n) – a drop from a person’s eye; and tear (v) – to rip something.
- 3. Heteronyms (also called eye-rhyme) are a type of homograph that is also spelled the same and have different meanings, but sound totally different, for example:
In Cape Town the bitterly cold north wind
needles under the scarf that I tightly wind.
- 4. Homonyms, in linguistics, broadly defined, are words that are spelled the same and sound alike, but have different meanings. They are considered to be identical rhymes. For example:
She recoils and feels herself pale—
his behaviour was beyond the pale.
- 5. An auto antonym (contronyms/contranyms/‘Janus words’) is a word with a homonym that is also an antonym (a word with the opposite meaning). For example: Peruse: To skim OR to read very carefully.
- Half-rhyme (not to be confused with para-rhyme or assonance) is one of the major poetic devices. It is also called an imperfect rhyme/slant rhyme/near rhyme/oblique rhyme, and some sources differentiate between them. It can be defined as a rhyme in which the stressed syllables of ending consonants match, however, the preceding vowel sounds do not match. Half-rhyme is not a perfect rhyme; it is considered a form of forced rhyme. For example, in which two words share just a vowel sound (assonant: for example, ‘heart’ and ‘star’); or in which they share just a consonant sound (consonant: for example, ‘milk’ and ‘walk’; ‘salt’ and ‘bolt’); or a combination of vowel and consonants (consonance: for example, galore/door); etc.
- Although para-rhyme and assonance are, to some extent, similar to half-rhyme, there is a slight difference between them. In para-rhyme, the ending and beginning consonant match, for example, rod/red, tell/tall. In assonance, the vowel sounds are also similar, such as in ‘shot’ and ‘lot’.
- Consonant and assonant rhyme are considered to be slant/half-rhymes and are often found in rap music. They have their root word in the Latin sonus, meaning sound. Consonance, for example, ‘as the wind will bend’ is another phonetic agreement akin to alliteration. Consonant-agreement is an important component of many poetic forms, especially in Irish and Welsh poetry, where it is referred to a cywdydd (harmony of sound). Consonant end rhymes lend variety, for example, wrangle/rankle. Assonance (matching assonants: accented vowels) is also often in said category though is more akin to true-rhyme than alliteration, for example, ‘She loves the thunder’.
- Alliteration or Head Rhyme commonly refers to matching initial consonant (3 or more in a row), e.g. stylish senior citizen.
- 1. Alliteration also includes assonant rhyme, for example, loathsome & hokum.
- 2. In multi-syllabic words they rhyme in the stressed syllables (asunder/blunder/under).
- 3. Sibilance, a stylistic device, produces hissing sounds. Sibilants are used more than twice in quick succession. It includes the ‘s’, ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ sounds.
- 4. Vowels in stressed syllables can also alliterate, e.g. irrational inebriated individual indeed irritates: of these, only the final 3 alliterate as the stress falls on the vowels in their initial syllables.
- Imperfect (near) rhyme is a rhyme between a stressed and unstressed syllable:
‘atone’2 syllables: a-tone (stress on the ‘-tone’)
‘telephone’3 syllables: te-le-phone (stress on the ‘te-’)
- Semi-rhyme is a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. Feminine rhyme falls in this category, for example:
‘wounded’2 syllables: wound-ed (feminine rhyme ‘-ed’)
‘bandit’—2 syllables: ban-dit (stress on ‘ban-’)
- Scares rhyme is the rhyming on words with limited rhyming alternatives, eg, fauna/sauna. ‘Nugget’, for example, has no true rhyme.
- Trailing rhyme is where a single stressed syllable word is sometimes softened by using trailing rhyme, ie in which one or two words trail an additional unstressed syllable behind it, for example
- & failure/ailment/railing.
- Mosaic rhyme/apocorante rhyme is the opposite of trailing rhyme. It is a multiple rhyme in which a single multiple syllabic word, is made to rhyme with two or more words, for example
obedience & Aubade in a sense.
Forced Rhyme/Wrenched Rhyme (summary)
One of the pitfalls that a poet needs to avoid is forced rhyme. Feminine rhyme falls in this category. Forced rhyme is:
1. a rhyme that is produced by changing the normal spelling of the word, for example, I used ‘raptured’ to conform to the rhyme (see the extract from my poem, In Dismay, below);
2. adding a random line in order to conform to the rhyme scheme—superfluous information in a poem is distracting;
3. padding the line with unnecessary words in order to achieve a rhyme or syllable count per line—it is a common error, especially by new poets;
4. half/near rhymes & clichés (diamonds in her eyes / where my love lies; dove/love; eyes that sparkle like diamonds – diamonds don’t sparkle; they reflect light);
5. when a line ending in a feminine rhyme is paired with a stressed word in the rhyme scheme, for example, ‘sitting’ and ‘sing’—this does NOT rhyme and it causes confusion with the pronunciation when it is read out loud, ie stressing the second half of the word ‘sitting’ to rhyme with the word ‘sing’; also: glory & story rhyme, but they do not rhyme with history (where the stress falls on the first part of the word: his-to-ry). Exception: Deibide rhymes, ie in the first line of each rhyming pair, the rhyming syllable is stressed, and in the second line it is unstressed, for example, ‘ball’ & ‘windfall’;
6. using foreign words, words that are difficult to pronounce, very long words, or tongue-twisters (undue alliteration), for example, ‘She sells seashells by the seashore.’—it slows down the reading of the poem; and
7. changing the normal structure of a phrase, ie it is when a poet says something in an unnatural way—this is often mistaken for how poetry is written in general. I distorted the grammar of the second line in the following example from my poem, On the Ocean Waves, to force it to rhyme.
Seagulls bob at rest on the ocean waves
A tired fisherman the predawn chill braves
(Instead of: A tired fisherman braves the predawn chill)
***
IN DISMAY
Reality is an unwelcome foil—fractured.
Embracing all these fleeting impressions—raptured!
The Less Than Perfect Aspect of Feminine Rhyme
Double rhyme and syllabic rhyme (both perfect rhymes) include feminine rhyme, but I would make a distinction between these.
A masculine syllable is a single stressed syllable word. A feminine syllable is an unstressed syllable at the end of a word where the root word is stressed, for example, guilt → guilty. Considering the etymology of these words, it is not surprising that they are now considered derogatory terms.
Masculine rhyme & Feminine rhyme: Masculine rhyme is where single stressed words rhyme, for example, brag & flag; now more commonly included in single perfect rhyme. Feminine rhyme is a two or more syllable word where the last syllable is unstressed. These include words that comprise (in common usage) of a stem/root word plus a suffix, for example, plural (‘-es’) and past tense (‘-ed’) when pronounced in certain words; gerund & present particle (‘-ing’); agent noun & comparative suffix (‘-er’, ‘-or’, ‘-ee’); et cetera. Feminine rhyme is not considered to be true rhyme and falls in the category of semi-rhyme.
There is no getting away from the fact that you need to read your poetry out load to check the SOUNDS in the rhymes used.
[Edit] 8 April 2024