John Lennard on Rhyming

Lennard, John ‘Introduction (2005)’ in New Oxford Rhyming Dictionary, 2006 / 2012, OUP, ix-xxxii

DEGREE
Rime riche	Full rhyme + preceding elements	Right hand / fright and
Full rhyme	Last stressed vowel + following elements	Hand / band
Vowel rhyme (half-rhyme)	Last stressed vowel only	Hand / hang
Para-rhyme (half-rhyme)	Following elements only	Hand / bind
TYPE
Stressed rhyme (masculine)	Last stressed vowel in last syllable	Hand / band
Unstressed rhyme (feminine)	Last stressed vowel not in last syllable	Handing / standing
Mosaic rhyme	Involving multiple words	Tanned hands / bandstand
Hudibrastic rhyme	Deliberately silly mosaic rhyme	Handstand / grand, planned
Autorhyme (identical or null rhyme)	Repetition	Hypotenuse / lot o’news
Eye rhyme	In spelling only, not pronunciation	Cough / bough
Spelling rhyme	With distorted orthography	Charles II / beckoned
Wrenched rhyme	Last vowel mis-stressed	Hand / brigand
Embedded rhyme	With a medial syllable in a word	Handout / band
Broken rhyme	Displays embedded rhyme	Band / hand-/out…
POSITION
Terminal rhyme (end rhyme)	Between words ending lines
Medial rhyme (internal rhyme)	At least one rhyme-word is not terminal
Leonine rhyme	Between the mid- and end-words of the same line
Initial rhyme	Between words beginning lines
RELATION
Monorhyme	aaaa	Hand / band / sand / land
Single rhyme	aabc	Hand / band / foot / arm
	abac	Hand / foot / band / arm
	abca	Hand / foot / arm / band
	abbc	Hand/  foot / put / arm
	abcb	Hand / foot / arm / put
	abcc	Hand / foot / arm / harm
Couplet rhyme	Aabb	Hand / band / foot / put
Cross-rhyme	Abab	Hand / foot / band / put
Arch-rhyme	Abba	Hand / foot / put / band
Delayed / accelerated	Relative to any establish pattern
Chain rhyme	Chaining successive stanzas together with a shared rhyme
Semantic	Between words with related meanings
Counter-semantic	Between words with opposed meanings
thematic	Between meanings thematic to a given work

• ix “Rhyme is heard everywhere – because it works.”
• ix “Listen to any crowd chant or sing, and the punched emphasis on any rhyme shows clearly how important it is to each singer, and to all keeping time.”
• ix in rappers “the cleverness and frequent sting of the tumbling rhymes cannot be denied”
• xi 12^th to 13^th century, rhyme became a structural element (previously just assonance, alliteration, word lengths, parallel metres or grammar)
• xi compared to alliteration and assonance, in rhyme “larger, grammatically significant elements of a word are likely to be involved”
• xi rhyme and rhythm are both from Greek rhythmos and ultimately rhein ‘to flow’
• xi “rhyme, by linking multiple syllables (usually) in distinct lines, binds much larger parcels of sense”
• xi rhyme “helped readers or audiences to understand and remember it”
• four kinds of rhyme:
  1. degree (full or para);
  2. type (stressed, unstressed, mosaic, eye, wrenched, embedded);
  3. position (terminal, medial, initial / auto);
  4. relation (single, cross, arch, accelerated, chain).
  5. There are also semantic, counter-semantic and thematic.
• xvii – xviii – broad rules of thumb
  1. “the consonance of full rhyme tends to confirm sense, while the dissonance of half-rhyme tends to question or ironize sense;”
  2. “stressed rhyme tends to affirmation, and unstressed rhyme to comedy;”
  3. “medial rhymes tend to call for accelerated delivery;”
  4. “cross-rhyme marches while arch-rhyme curvets, monorhyme hammers, couplets epigrammatize, and so on.”
• Xxi Rhymes must work not just locally (ie between two lines), but in the overall feel of a text / lyric
• Xxi A writer who rhymes is forced to be innovative in thought and structure
• Xxi “variation of rhyme is necessary in any extended use of a stanza-form”
• Ottavia rima = abababcc; English royal rhyme = ababbcc
• Xxvi insistent rhyme can be powerful, ironic, or just very clumsy
• Xxix A regional accent in text is ok if it is authentic and consistent