Lecture
Of course, a semantic halo can surround not only meter and the rhythm inseparably bound to it, but other crucial components as well — above all rhyme. In some cases the semantic correlation of rhyming words is obvious: day — shade (night's shade); here we clearly have antonymy, and such consonance is semanticized, unlike, say, day — stump. Or: she plays the hypocrite, while he believes her; the frosts struck, and the roses withered, love stirs the blood. Here, too, a rather insistent, «hackneyed» semantic correlation makes itself felt, if anything even more so. But take, for example, a thoroughly non-standard rhyme: blew his nose — Bismarck; it is clear that this is admissible only given a certain (sardonic) attitude toward this historical figure — that is, it too is semanticized.
The word rhyme shares its origin with rhythm (a single Greek root), but the meanings differ. «Harmoniousness,» «proportion» — such is the meaning corresponding to the word «rhythm.» Rhyme, however, was defined by Trediakovsky as the concord of the final syllables of a line of verse with one another — clausulae. What is meant is the consonance or coincidence of line-endings, beginning from the last stressed vowel in the lines. Kantemir divided rhymes into monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic, or into «blunt,» «simple,» and «slippery»1:
Blunt (monosyllabic):
flea — plow bow — bell
Simple (disyllabic):
shirt —Ivashka I fly —I meet
Slippery (trisyllabic):
they slide —they crawl
He himself used only the «simple» kind.
«Blunt» rhymes are now called masculine, «simple» ones feminine, «slippery» ones dactylic, and those with stress falling further than the third syllable from the end — hyperdactylic: will move out — gallows.
Masculine rhyme and monosyllabic rhyme are not quite the same thing, just as feminine rhyme and disyllabic rhyme are not identical. This is especially clear from seventeenth-century material. In A. Belobotsky (a syllabic poet), rhyme is in principle monosyllabic — coincidence in the last syllable is obligatory, while in the penultimate syllable it is not, yet masculine rhyme is rare (deeds — was), while feminine, dactylic, and occasionally even hyperdactylic clausulae occur side by side more often (fearsome — bold, of heaven — of another, of fury — of cruelty, stone — eternal), which later ceased to be considered rhyme at all. In Simeon Polotsky rhyme is in principle disyllabic, but not necessarily feminine — it can be masculine (to him —to his own, art —bring), dactylic (acquisition — disappearance), and even variously-stressed (to you — in the sky).
Twentieth-century poetry too saw experiments with variously-stressed rhyme. Preference was given to consonances with masculine and dactylic clausulae: rhyming of the type beat their brows against the door — I wouldn't have believed it was more common than, say, the consonance will come out — grandfather. Vyazemsky, however, in his comic verses, contrived to rhyme: Cassandra —melancholy, is written — will happen, to crack — to flash. But a century later it was not variously-stressed but variously-syllabled rhymes that gained particular currency: cutting in — sobriety (V. Mayakovsky), Antibukashkin — blotting-paper (A. Voznesensky).
The sonic inexactness of rhyme was understood differently in different eras, and the measure and norm of its admissibility were defined differently as well. It is impossible to imagine a purist who would condemn Griboyedov's rhyme Skalozub — glup (fool) on the grounds that the final letters b and p do not coincide. It is quite understandable that b devoices to p, producing a complete correspondence of sounds. But in that same Griboyedov the rhyme vyem — stikhiyam might have seemed to his contemporaries unexpected and daring because of the non-coincidence of the post-stress vowels, though these too, once reduced, converge in sound. What rhymes in Pushkin with Latin has gone out of fashion nowadays will be recalled: «He knew enough Latin...». But here it is worth pausing. One should not trust popular modern editions of Onegin, where it is printed as Latin [genitive form]. In the academic edition it is the alternate form, and this is what justifies the rhyme with nowadays, although, on the other hand, both forms are pronounced identically. Only starting with Lermontov was a rhyme of the type nowadays —Latin essentially legitimized.
A special variety of inexact rhymes consisted of the so-called truncated rhymes — that is, those that would become exact if a part of one rhyming word's ending, absent in the other, were «truncated.» This concerns above all the «superfluous» sound y. In masculine rhymes: beauty — art thou, heights — holy; in feminine ones: waves — full; in dactylic ones: little chamber —little. Less often other sounds played this role: Potemkin — twilight, contemporary — songs. Mayakovsky significantly expanded the range of truncated rhymes: story —longing, whirlwind — living, eagles — parliament, and others. For him there were no «forbidden» truncations.
The sonic enrichment and deepening of rhyme was traditionally conceived as a tendency toward identity or similarity of sounds to the left of the stressed vowel that begins the rhyme. In the twentieth century, less attention began to be paid to the post-stress part of the rhyme, the right-hand part, allowing all manner of inexactness there — so long as the left-hand, supporting and pre-supporting sounds of the rhyme echoed one another. Bryusov noted the achievement of the Futurists in this respect, naming Mayakovsky, Pasternak, and Aseyev, and cited as examples Pasternak's rhymes continuing —meadows, with bergamot —to soil oneself, of fodders —by the stern, attic —leapfrog, beside you —poured in, while at the same time asserting that this «leftward» quality of rhyme was already characteristic of Pushkin, who anticipated modern quests in this area1: Pushkin was strict and exact in the post-stress part of the rhyme, but, like many of his contemporaries, also paid attention to the supporting and pre-supporting sounds.
Questions connected with the grammar of rhyme are of interest. Which parts of speech rhyme, and can rhyme, with which? It is obvious that a noun readily rhymes with a noun, an adjective with an adjective, a verb with a verb, and so on (especially when the rhyming words share the same grammatical forms — case, person, number). This is the phenomenon of grammatically homogeneous, or simply grammatical, rhyme: ring —face, replaced — blessed. But of course different parts of speech are also capable of forming a rhyme — a noun with a verb, an adjective with an adverb: crystal — discerned, of the sick man — again. Such consonances demand somewhat (at times considerably) greater inventiveness of the poet. There are also specific, rare situations in which function words — seemingly quite unsuited to rhyming — take part in a rhyme: for instance, a conjunction with a short participle: was fated —but; a conjunction with a noun: and —of love; a preposition with an adverb and nouns: for — from afar —a ruble — a mite.
Function words are more inclined to form compound rhyme, attaching themselves to notional words. Some compositions of this kind have long become familiar: what then — oh God, could they —fish, is it you —whimpered. But there are also unique cases where one member of a rhyming pair consists not of two but of a greater number of words. In Benediktov an adverb plus two particles rhymes with a noun: why on earth — service (in his translation of Adam Mickiewicz's «Pan Tadeusz»). In Mayakovsky a personal pronoun plus an intensifying particle plus a preposition rhymes with a proper name: I'm not at all... — Severyanin («A Cloud in Trousers»). A.P. Kvyatkovsky cited, admittedly as an example of an unsuccessful rhyme, record-breaking in the number of words composing it, Bryusov's rhyme: unpronounceable — goods, willows, and us, and me!2 Indeed, this is an almost «unpronounceable» compound rhyme. (Of course, compound rhyme can also be formed without the help of function words — from notional parts of speech alone: where are you?— maidens, the river carries on trade —penal servitude, mute is he —demon. In general, compound rhyming conceals within it truly inexhaustible resources of new consonances never yet tried in poetry.)
The most sensitive and delicate question for rhyme is the question of how necessary its presence is in Russian verse. World literature has given us remarkable examples of unrhymed — blank verse. These exist in our poetry as well. Voices have been raised against rhyme, against its «tyranny» in the culture of verse. There have also been its zealous defenders, who assigned unrhymed verse a modest place off to the side of the main line of development of our verse culture. As a rule, the clear advantage lay with the defenders of rhyme.
The characterization of rhyming is also connected with the question of the order in which the end-consonances of lines are arranged relative to one another — the configuration of rhymes. In this connection it has been noted that rhymes may be paired, or adjacent, that is, arranged in the sequence aabb, or cross rhymes — abab, or enclosing rhymes — abba. Rhymes repeated three or more times in the most varied variants and combinations are also cultivated. Out of the simplest combinations (paired, cross, and enclosing rhyming) more complex formations are built up. But this already belongs to the problems of stanza form, since the configuration of rhymes in a poetic text is precisely a matter of stanzaic (or astrophic) configuration.
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