3 REASONS TO USE SLANT RHYME IN YOUR POETRY
Slant rhyme or half rhyme, sometimes
called near rhyme or imperfect rhyme are words that come close to rhyming, but
they really don’t rhyme. (Said / regret, or find / friend.)
Emily
Dickinson is best known for her use of slant rhyme. They are a common
characteristic of her poetry as is her unconventional punctuation.
I
will admit, my original thoughts about slant rhyme were confining. I was under
the impression that Dickinson (and others) used slant rhyming merely to
increase the possibilities of word choice. This, in turn, would allow the poet
greater flexibility and increase his/her ability to convey meaning.
In searching the internet for thoughts on the advantages
of slant rhyme usage I came across a site, www.Chegg.com. In their definition of
slant rhyme the author states, “Many poets use slant rhyme to introduce an
element of the unexpected and prompt their readers to pay closer attention to
words themselves rather than the sounds of the words.”
This makes perfect sense. It is this unexpected
inconsistency that challenges the reader and adds what Paul Fussell, in his
book, Poetic Meter & Poetic Form describes
as: counterpoint, modulation, tension, interplay and variation.
Ezra Pound states that “Most arts attain their effect by
using a fixed element and a variable.” Dickinson ’s
slant rhyme is that variable.
Fussell also talks about poets who put much attention
into meter with no variation. He states that their poetic “metrical regularity
makes them remarkably easy to memorize and recite.” In other words, there are
no surprises. Their expectancy is the very essence that makes the poem and
breaks it as well.
By using slant rhyme, Dickinson not only increases her
word choice, thereby increasing her ability to convey the very essence of what
she intends, she also gains the ability to surprise the reader, adding tension
to her poem and taking her poems to heights far above a fixed element and into
the world of art as Ezra Pound insightfully recognized.
How on earth is this considered a finding?? Emily Dickinson wrote her poetry from her heart with no professional training and never knew or cared about fucking slant rhyme. It is so sad that she was speaking from her heart and never wanted attention and now generations of arrogant, puffed up men have been sitting around trying to apply bullshit metrics and soulless measurements to her words. Write your own poetry, have your own voice. Im fairly certain if she was alive she would tell you to do the same.
ReplyDeleteWell this is not at all an uncommon for the works of the greatest artists. Consider J. S. Bach's chorales. It is highly unlikely that Bach created the rules of voice leading that we currently use in studying these works. He composed those works from his heart and afterwards people noticed that there were specific ways that he treated the flow of harmony. Then, those ways (that he created from his heart) now become a formula and one of the standard approaches to writing choral music. Personally, I don't see this as anything evil.
DeleteOf course, some might be so pedantic as to teach that one MUST follow these (after the fact) rules or be classified as a failure. But, in reality, these 'rules' give a person a way to understand what is going on in the music that they love. It becomes even more enjoyable when you realize that Bach himself broke every one of those rules, that some have created from studying his works.
Well this is not at all an uncommon for the works of the greatest artists. Consider J. S. Bach's chorales. It is highly unlikely that Bach created the rules of voice leading that we currently use in studying these works. He composed those works from his heart and afterwards people noticed that there were specific ways that he treated the flow of harmony. Then, those ways (that he created from his heart) now become a formula and one of the standard approaches to writing choral music. Personally, I don't see this as anything evil.
DeleteOf course, some might be so pedantic as to teach that one MUST follow these (after the fact) rules or be classified as a failure. But, in reality, these 'rules' give a person a way to understand what is going on in the music that they love. It becomes even more enjoyable when you realize that Bach himself broke every one of those rules, that some have created from studying his works.
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