Types of Rhyme

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The poet who wishes to write a rhyming poem has several different sorts of rhyme from which to choose. Some are strong, some more subtle, and all can be employed equally the poet sees fit. The following are some of the chief types :

Terminate Rhymes
Rhyming of the final words of lines in a poem. The following, for example, is from Seamus Heaney's "Digging" :

      Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground

Internal Rhymes
Rhyming of two words within the same line of poesy. The following, for example, is from Edgar Allan Poe'south "The Raven" :

      In one case upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

Slant Rhymes (sometimes called imperfect, partial, well-nigh, oblique, off etc.)
Rhyme in which two words share just a vowel audio (assonance – due east.thousand. "heart" and "star") or in which they share just a consonant sound (consonance – due east.one thousand. "milk" and "walk"). Slant rhyme is a technique perhaps more in tune with the uncertainties of the modern age than potent rhyme. The following case is as well from Seamus Heaney's "Excavation" :

      Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug equally a gun

Rich Rhymes
Rhyme using 2 different words that happen to sound the same (i.e. homonyms) – for example "heighten" and "raze". The following instance – a triple rich rhyme – is from Thomas Hood'due south" A First Attempt in Rhyme" :

      Partake the fire divine that burns,
In Milton, Pope, and Scottish Burns,
Who sang his native braes and burns.

Eye Rhymes
Rhyme on words that look the aforementioned just which are really pronounced differently – for example "bough" and "rough". The opening four lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, for example, go :

      Shall I compare thee to a summer's twenty-four hours?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds practise shake the darling buds of May,
And summer'south lease hath all too short a date:

Hither, "temperate" and "date" look equally though they rhyme, but few readers would pronounce "temperate" so that they did. Beware that pronunciations tin drift over time and that rhymes can end up as eye rhymes when they were originally full (and vice versa).

Identical Rhymes
Simply using the same word twice. An example is in (some versions of) Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could not Stop for Decease" :

      We paused before a Firm that seemed
A Swelling of the Footing—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Basis—

It's articulate there is ofttimes a certain corporeality of overlap betwixt rhyme and other poetical devices such every bit assonance – subjects to be covered in hereafter poetry writing tips.

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