Art is so tenuous, Life is so strenuous, Love such an exquisite trance, Shall I beware of her? Or shall I dare for her, Like the old knights of romance? -EDWARD J. WHEELER, in the International. 13. Make a scrap-book or note-book collection of every type of rhyme you can gather. 14. Write a brief discussion of the suitability of some of these rhymes from the standpoint of the entire poem and of the individual passage. 15. Practise altering the rhyme words in well-known poems, then carefully study the effect on the thought, beauty, and general poetic qualities of the poem. CHAPTER VIII ASSONANCE AND ALLITERATION All alliteration for the sake of alliteration is trifling. 1. Assonance The literal meaning of the word assonance conveys a suggestion of its technical signification-sound placed with sound. It is vowel-rhyme, and in versification is used now and then as a substitute for regular-rhyme. Assonance consists in the use of the same vowel-sound in the assonant words-combined, however, with nonassonant consonants. Theoretically, this method of sound-unity requires the use of the same vowels in the assonant words from each last accented vowel to the end of the word, penitent, merited, furnishing an unusually good example because all the vowels are the same e, i, e— and only one consonant repeated-t. In practice, however, it is usually only the accented vowels which are identical, as maiden, naiad. Assonance was the rhyme-system of some of the old Romance languages, and "Le Chanson de Roland” is in itself a famous example. This rhyme-scheme was a characteristic of the old Spanish ballads, and is still used in Spanish poetry. George Eliot successfully imitated their usage in the following song from "The Spanish Gypsy:" Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness, Assonance was also a feature of Celtic poetry, and survives as a spontaneous quality in some present-day Irish poems. For example, we find it freely used in Milliken's "The Groves of Blarney." "The groves of Blarney, they look so charming," etc. It is used by Francis Mahoney in "The Bells of Shandon:" I've heard bells tolling Old Adrian's Mole in, In the gorgeous turrets Of Nôtre Dame. Here tolling and Mole in, can and Dame, are not intended as imperfect rhymes but as assonance. It is also used in "The Town of Passage" by the same author: The town of Passage Is both large and spacious Upon the say. Examples of it may be found in many great poets. Lowell says that "Homer, like Dante and Shakespeare, like all who really command language, seems fond of playing with assonances. For the modern rhymster, its sparing use may add color and variety to his verse if employed within the line, but it had best be avoided in terminal words lest it be mistaken for imperfect end-rhyme. 2. Alliteration Alliteration is another ancient system of verse-making which survives in English poetry merely as an ornament. It is the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of two or more words or syllables in close or immediate succession. In a somer seson when soft was the sonne, I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were. -WILLIAM LANGLAND, The Vision Concerning Piers the Plowman. Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and Middle-English poems are practically all alliterative—in fact, considered as verse, their distinguishing characteristic is this type of soundunity. In modern times, Wagner employed alliteration for his librettos instead of using end-rhymes, doubtless in most instances to convey the early Germanic feeling as well as for purposes of vocalization. The composer maintained that, owing to the singer's need of dwelling on the vowel-sound, the terminal consonant and rhyme were lost, whereas the initial consonant could not be lost. He was probably also influenced by the fact that the old Teutonic poems from which he drew his material were all written in alliteration, and he therefore found the form ready-made to his hand. Shakespeare used the scheme wherever it would beautify his verse. To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship. -Henry IV. And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book. -The Tempest. He also takes occasion in "Love's Labor's Lost" to ridicule the abuse of alliteration, where Holofernes, the schoolmaster, says, "I will something affect the letter; for it argues facility," and then he reads a poem beginning: The preyful princess pierced and prick't a pretty pleasing pricket, which reminds us of the nursery example, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. |