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#Post#: 420--------------------------------------------------
Rhyme scheme
By: Alharacas Date: May 6, 2018, 1:58 am
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I've always wondered whether there was something like the
nonsensical German Schüttelreim in any other language.
Schüttelreime aren't quite the same as English limericks. For
one thing, they usually consist of only two lines (or rather,
they aren't any good when forced to go on for 5 lines). For
another, the 2 last stressed syllables of a line need to rhyme,
plus the first letters need to be switched around.
To give you a better idea, the young limerick-lady from Ipswich
would have to make some "whips itch", instead of just making her
hips twitch.
The most well-known example (also quoted on wikipedia) is:
Es klapperten die Klapperschlangen
Bis ihre Klappern schlapper klangen
The rattlesnakes rattled
Until their rattles sounded lamer
These are also rather well-known, but not quite as good:
Er zog sie in die Hängematte,
Weil sie 'ne ganze Menge hatte
He pulled her into the hammock
Because she had quite a lot [of money]
Die Boxer aus der Meisterklasse
Boxten sich zu Kleistermasse
The boxers from the master class
Boxed until they were a mass of glue
#Post#: 457--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Dan Smith Date: May 6, 2018, 5:56 pm
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There is a form of humor or wordplay in English known as
"spoonerisms," after a real person, a Reverend William Archibald
Spooner, who was famous for doing it accidentally. They don't
rhyme. They consists of transposing the beginnings of two words
to produce a ludicrous mistake. An example would be "allow me to
sew you to a sheet" instead instead of "allow me to show you to
a seat."
#Post#: 494--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Allie Date: May 7, 2018, 1:03 pm
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I wonder why I didn't see this post before.
Anyway... I can't think of anything similar :(
The only particular thing about rhymes in Portuguese is their
"value".
For example, if you rhyme a verb with a verb or a noun with a
noun, it's a poor rhyme (as they're quite easy).
A rich rhyme consists of words of different categories, e.g. a
noun and a verb.
A precious rhyme happens when you can find a rhyme to an unusual
word or word ending (silent consonants, certain pronoun
positions, etc).
For a rhyme to be perfect, the sound and spelling must be the
same. Otherwise, it's an imperfect rhyme.
(Not relevant at all, I know, but I liked the topic and wanted
to add something)
#Post#: 527--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Alharacas Date: May 8, 2018, 2:19 am
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Thank you for your reply, Allie! Don't worry about your comment
being relevant or not, immediately going off topic seems to be
almost de rigueur here. ;) And it was very interesting! Would
you mind quoting some examples if and when you remember or come
across them?
Thank you, Dan! I'd known about Spoonerisms, but hadn't made the
connection. I'd thought a Spoonerism was more or less the
equivalent of what's called a Kalauer in German, i.e. a rather
weak pun/joke/rhyme, as in
"Wie fanden Sie Ihr Schnitzel, mein Herr?" - "Rein zufällig.
Unter dem Salatblatt."
"How did you find (= What did you think of) your steak, Sir?" -
"Purely by accident. Under the salad leaf."
Das Hotel hat indischen Komfort: das Bad ist jenseits des
Ganges.
The hotel has Indian facilities: the bathroom is on the opposite
side of the Ganges/hallway.
#Post#: 550--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Allie Date: May 8, 2018, 11:09 am
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Poor rhymes
They are easy, I won't explain them a lot. In Portuguese, it's
easy to rhyme verbs as they always end in "ar", "er" or "ir"
(cantar, falar, pular, ler, comer, entender, ouvir, sorrir,
sair). Even conjugated, they usually follow a pattern (which
again, is easy to rhyme). Nouns can also be easy, as some
endings are common, such as "ão".
Rich rhyme
Mas que na forma se disfarce o emprego
Do esforço: e trama viva se construa
De tal modo, que a imagem fique nua
Rica mas sóbria, como um templo grego
(From "A um poeta", by Olavo de Bilac)
The noun "emprego" (employment) rhymes with the adjective
"grego" (Greek). The verb "construa" (build) rhymes with the
adjective "nua" (naked)
The translation, as follows:
But that in the form the employment of
The effort be disguised: and may a living plot be built
So that the image is left naked
Rich but sober, like a Greek temple
Precious rhymes
In the example, the poet rhymes "Eleusis" (which is definitely a
word we don't see everyday) with "deuses". As it may occur with
precious rhymes, it's not a perfect, as the spelling is not the
same, but the sound is.
É tanta a glória que nos encaminha
Em nosso amor de seleção, profundo,
Que (ouço ao longe o oráculo de Elêusis)
Se um dia eu fosse teu e fosses minha,
O nosso amor conceberia um mundo
E do teu ventre nasceriam deuses...
(Extracted from "Argila", by Raul de Leoni.
Translation
There is so much glory that guides us
In our love of selection, deep,
That (I hear in the distance the oracle of Eleusis)
If one day I were yours and you were mine,
Our love would conceive a world
And out of your womb gods would be born...
#Post#: 583--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Kseniia Date: May 9, 2018, 9:03 am
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In Russian, there's a relatively new form of verse. There are
only four lines, 9-8-9-2 syllables. Technically it's iamb I
suppose. The second and the fourth lines have to rhyme, and the
first and the third lines can rhyme too but not necessarily.
Usually the last line is a punchline of a joke so to speak (it's
usually black humour though). Punctuation marks and capital
letters are not allowed. The verses are called
"порошки"
("poroshki"). So, for example,
глеб
гравитаци&
#1077;й
томимый
летит
пронзая
облака
мешает
парашют
дефектный
слегка
A rough translation into English:
he is by gravitation forced
flies and transfixes cloud lid
obstructed by defective brolly
a bit
© Wasilevsky
I wonder what could be an analogue for this form of verse in
English? I think these verses are closer to limericks than
Schüttelreime are, aren't they?
#Post#: 623--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Coligno Date: May 10, 2018, 6:22 am
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That's very interesting, Allie. Italian has the same problem as
Portuguese (perhaps even worse) with rhymes being just too easy,
which often makes them sound quite lame, at least to my foreign
ears. I don't know if there's some similar classification of
rhymes as I'm not very familiar with Italian poetry or
literature in general. But what you describe reminds me of the
various kinds of rhyme in mediaeval Welsh court poetry (back in
the days when being a bard was a high-ranking profession).
In Welsh, for example, there was:
Odl ("rhyme"), in which the vowel and consonant of the final
syllable correspond, e.g. agorant ~ anrhegant; rhagorau ~
rhinweddau;
Odl Wyddeleg ("Irish rhyme") in which the vowels correspond with
each other, but the consonants are grouped into classes and a
consonant rhymes with any other consonant from the same class
(this is how rhyme works in Irish, with the additional
restriction that the rhyming consonants must be of the same
quality: "broad" (velarised) or "slender" (palatalised)), e.g.
angerddawl ~ mawr; meddyg ~ byd (f, dd, l, r made up one class
of consonants, b, d, g another class, etc.);
Llusg rhyme is an internal rhyme in which the final syllable of
an accented word rhymes with the accented penultimate syllable
of the last word in the line, e.g. cefais gan dréth orddéthol;
tarw teg tálgarth yng ngwárthal;
Proest is where the final consonants correspond, but the vowels
can vary, e.g. gwledd ~ rhydd ~ ymladd ~ rhudd;
Then there were various other forms of ornamentation such as
cymeriad ("consonance"), in which a single consonant (cymeriad
llythrennol, "letter cymeriad") or series of consonants
(cymeriad cynganeddol, "harmony cymeriad") was repeated between
lines, either at the beginning of each line: e.g. Llafn yn llaw
a llaw yn lladd pennain / Llaw ar llafn a'r llafn ar llu
norddmain, ; Dragon o ddwyrang draig o ddwyrain / Draig wen
ollewin well ei dichwain; or linking the end of one line with
the beginning of the next (cyrch-gymeriad), e.g. Gwelais ar
saeson trychion truain / tru ddydd difedydd fedel cyngrain; and
then there were various kinds of cynghanedd ("harmony") which
governed the use of rhyme, assonance and consonance within the
line.
As you can see, it was quite complicated (and I haven't even
mentioned the different kinds of meter) and it took many years
of training to become a bard. Nowadays when poets no longer tend
to be sponsored by wealthy patrons, they generally use slightly
"cheaper" ornamentation.
#Post#: 635--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Allie Date: May 10, 2018, 8:42 am
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Romantic languages have lots of similarities, so I wouldn't be
surprised.
My example of poor rhymes can easily be translated to other
romantic languages.
The noun ending "ão" in Portuguese is equivalent to the endings
"one" (in Italian), "on" (in French) and "ón" (in Spanish).
As for the verbs, my comment about endings and conjugations also
apply.
However, I can't speak about the rhyme scheme in those other
languages, as I am not aware of them.
But please notice, I said it's easy to make a bad rhyme, I
didn't say there weren't good ones!
I am definitely not a poet, but if I had to guess, I'd say in
French can possibily be easier than in the other romantic
languages because, unlike Spanish, Portuguese and Italian,
French is not a phonetic language, just like English, which
opens many possibilities. You can rhyme the sounds, not the
spelling necessarialy (which in Portuguese would be enough to
make a rhyme imperfect) and the way those languages are spoken
allow sound combinations (such as the "liasons" in French) that
may not occur in other ones. This doensn't mean that those
possible rhymes are good, though, as the criteria for what a
good rhyme is change from language to language.
I remember I was in class once and, as we were speaking about
rhymes, my teacher mentioned the American rapper Eminen. I
didn't understand why he was using him as an example, as I had
never cared to listen to his songs or mind his work. But, as my
teacher insisted that he could come up with good rhymes and I
valued his opinion, I decided to give it a look. I read the
lyrics of the song "Stan" and thought "what rhymes was he
talking about?", as I didn't notice many. Then I decided to
listen to the song... "Ah, those!". It was surprising how many
sound combinations scaped me as a non native speaker and, even
though I can't say I've become one of his members ever since, it
was a good experiment. Are those rhymes considered good? I can't
tell.
In English, despite the absence of a "rhyme value", there are
unusual rhymes and the possibility of using the rythm of the
language itself as part of the compostion (as it's a
stress-timed langauge), enriching it, as it's done in
limericks, for example. In romantic languages such as Portuguese
and Spanish, the sounds are worked in a different way (as they
are syllable-timed languages).
So, how to determine if a rhyme is good or not? It depends!
(This was a gigantic comment and we're not even discussing
metric yet!)
Thanks for your comment about Welsh rhyme. My knowledge of
Gaeilge is limited to the names of the Luas stations in Dublin,
so I can't comment much on that subject, but from what I
understod, there may slightly similar things in Portuguese. I
mentioned the classification of "value", but there are
classifications about phonetics (correspondence of vowels,
consonants or both) and also about accentuation (whether the
word is accentuad in the last, penultimate or antipenultimate
syllable).
If we mention metrics, we'll stay here for years.
If we start about the literary movements of political influence,
we'll never finish this discussion!
#Post#: 638--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rhyme scheme
By: Allie Date: May 10, 2018, 9:30 am
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I just would like to add a couple of things to my previous
comment as I believe it may give a wrong impression. So, as much
as I didn't want to discuss history and literary movements, I
think I may add briefly:
I mentioned the rhyme classification that helps us to identify a
"good" rhyme. However, "good" rhymes don't make a good poem.
Possibly, the most important book written in Portuguese is "Os
Lusíadas" by Luís de Camões. It's an epic poem that narrates the
history of Portugal, which means that, in order to read it, not
only do you need good Portuguese, but also some history
background. If you read this work, of course you can find the
so-called "poor rhymes", after all, among the many rich and
precious ones, it's only natural it occurs. It doesn't change
the importance or the beauty of this masterpiece.
The abundance of rich or precious rhymes doesn't make a poem
good either. The literary movement "Parnasianismo" was
criticised because, among the elaborated rhymes and unusal
words, the meaning of what as communicated was seen as
secondary. Writers were so concered writing in a particular way,
that the readers couldn't always make out the meaning of what
they were reading. An example of that is the Brazilian National
Anthem, which was writen in parnasian style. The result: almost
nobody can remember or understand the lyrics! It's beautiful,
but it's a disaster.
The modernist movement came as an opposition, trying to prove
that you didn't need to count every syllable and use a
particular rhyme scheme to use words in a beautiful way.
A somewhat similar current of though (or should I say
"rebellion"?) had taken place years earlier, in the Romantism
period, when writers deliberatedly chose to write the way spoken
in Brazil (the colony), going against the gramatical rules and
lexicon used in Portugual (the crown).
So, sometimes, more than the words, there are more elements that
can be considered in a piece of writing.
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