There are many different types of rhyme used in poetry. One of these is pararhyme; let's look at it in more detail.
Rhyme and pararhyme
Rhyme is when two words sound the same. Rhyming words either have identical vowels and final consonants in the final syllable, or have similar sounding vowels and consonants.
A pararhyme is a half-rhyme in which the rhyming words share an identical pattern of consonants but different vowels.
Pararhymes can occur between two or more lines, or as internal rhymes within a line of poetry. An example of pararhyme is 'hall' and 'hill'. Both have identical consonants (h-ll) but different vowel sounds (/hɔːl/ and /hɪl/).
Pararhyme was coined by Edmund Blunden to describe the concept of 'near rhyme'.
Here are some examples of pararhymes:Black and block
Well and will
Gray and green
Pararhyme is often referred to as impartial or imperfect rhyme. Unlike perfect rhyme, the rhyming words in pararhyme do not share identical vowel sounds.
Feminine pararhymes
Feminine rhyme, or double rhyme, is the rhyming of two-syllable words.
Feminine pararhyme is a form of pararhyme in which two-syllable words share an identical pattern of consonants but different vowels. They may share one identical vowel sound but have one sound that differs (eg. butter and batter) or entirely different vowel sounds (torn up and turnip).
Examples of feminine pararhymes:
- Drawer and dryer
- Blindness and blandness
- Lover and lever
Feminine pararhyme can also occur between multiple syllables in monosyllabic words. For example:
- Come on and came in
- Dole out and deal it
- Torn up and turnip
Feminine pararhyme is when two-syllable words have identical consonant patterns.- wikimedia commons
Here is an example of some feminine pararhymes in poetry:
Seamus Heaney's 'The Strand at Lough Beg' (1979):
Along the road, a high, bare pilgrim's track
Where Sweeney fled before the bloodied heads,
Goat beards and dogs' eyes in a demon pack
Blazing out of the ground, snapping and squealing.
What blazed ahead of you? A fake road block?
The red lamp swing, the sudden brakes and stalling
Engine, voices, heads hooded and the cold-nosed gun?
'Squealing' and 'stalling' is not an example of a perfect feminine rhyme because the two words do not have identical vowel and consonant sounds after the first letter. However, they do have feminine pararhyme.
The two syllable words have identical beginning and final consonant sounds (sk-wee-ling) (st-all-ling), making this a feminine pararhyme.
Pararhymes vs. half-rhyme
It is crucial to establish the difference between a pararhyme and a half-rhyme to avoid confusion.
A half-rhyme occurs between two or more words that have identical final consonant sounds but different vowel sounds.
The difference between pararhyme and half-rhyme is that the words must have entirely identical consonant patterns to be a pararhyme, while only the final consonants must be identical in order to be a half-rhyme.
All pararhymes are half-rhymes, but not all half-rhymes are pararhymes.
- Words that are pararhymes and therefore half-rhymes (the earlier examples):
Bl(a)ck and bl(o)ck
W(e)ll and w(i)ll
Gr(ai)n and gr(oa)n
Dr(aw)er and dr(y)er
- Words that are half-rhymes but not pararhymes (final consonant sounds):
(B)l(a)ck and (c)l(o)ck
(We)ll and (ta)ll
(G)r(ai)n and (Sc)r(ee)n
(D)r(aw)er and (f)r(y)er
Here is an example of a half-rhyme in poetry that is not a pararhyme:
Ted Hughes, 'Snowdrop' (1960):
Now is the globe shrunk tight
Round the mouse's dulled wintering heart.
Weasel and crow, as if moulded in brass,
Move through an outer darkness
Not in their right minds,
with the other deaths.
She, too, pursues her ends, [...]
The half rhymes here occur between the final word of each line (tight-heart, brass-darkness, minds-ends).
When you read these words aloud you get the sense that these words almost rhyme but not quite - this is because they share final syllables. For example, 'darkness' and 'brass' have different vowel sounds but identical 'r' and 'ss' consonant sounds, which make the words sonically similar despite not perfectly rhyming.
If the rhyme in the final two lines was between 'minds' and 'mends', this would be a pararhyme. However, because only the final 'nds' consonant sounds are identical and there is no initial identical consonant sound, this is just a half-rhyme.
Here is an example of a half-rhyme in poetry that is also a pararhyme:
Emily Dickinson, 'Poem 744/Remorse is Memory Awake' (1891):
Remorse is cureless, — the Disease
Not even God — can heal;
For 'tis His institution — and
The Adequate of Hell —
The rhyming words, 'heal' and 'hell', have identical consonant patterns and only their vowel sounds differ (h-ee-l and h-eh-l). If the first letter of either word changed, for example the rhyming words were 'heal' and 'tell', then this would be a half-rhyme instead of a pararhyme because only the final consonant sound is identical.
The pararhyme between 'heal' and 'hell' adds weight to the intentions of Dickinson's words. A dichotomy is painted between the feelings of purity that words like 'God' and 'heal' evoke, and the feelings of impurity evoked by 'disease' and 'Hell'. The pararhyme reinforces the contrast Dickinson establishes between the ideas of purity and impurity in order to conceptualise 'remorse' to the listener/reader.
A dichotomy is a contrast between two things that are completely different.
Examples of pararhymes in poems
Let's explore the use of pararhymes in poetry and the effect pararhymes have on a listener or reader's interpretation of a poem.
The most famous example of pararhyme in poetry is arguably seen in Wilfred Owen's, 'Strange Meeting' (1919). This poem describes the atrocities of World War I in incredibly vivid detail, using the imperfect nature of pararhymes to reinforce the destructive nature of war.
Owen used pararhyme in his poem Strange Meeting. - pixabay
Some of the pararhymes throughout the poem: escaped/scooped, groaned/groined, bestirred/stared, hall/hell, grained/ground, moan/mourn, years/yours, wild/world, hair/here, laughed/left...
Pararhyme in Exposure
Let's analyse the pararhymes in another Owen poem to establish the possible reason for Owen's use of this type of rhyme. 'Exposure' (1918) describes the agonisingly long wait soldiers endured in the trenches during World War I. The waiting is described in a way that makes the environment feel lively and active, despite the relative calm in the lulls between periods of active warfare.
Wilfred Owen's 'Exposure' (1918):
Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . .
Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.
Here, each end rhyme is a feminine pararhyme. Owen here rhymes 'Knive us' (n-y-v uh-s) with 'nervous' (n-er-v-uh-s) and 'silent' (s-y-l-ent) with 'salient' (s-ay-l-ee-ent). Both sets of words have identical initial and final consonant sounds, and the slight word variation here arguably leaves the listener/reader with an unsettled feeling. The imperfect pararhymes reflect the tension and distress of war which the poet conveys to his audience.
Wilfred Owen used pararhyme in his WW1 poem Exposure to describe the soldier's conditions in the trenches. - pixabay
Owen makes frequent use of pararhyme. This is arguably because pararhymes add to the vivid imagery he uses to depict war. Imperfect rhyme, such as pararhyme, are potentially more useful than perfect rhyme, which is typically a more sonorous form of rhyme.
Pararhyme poem examples
Robert Graves' 'In Dedication [To the White Goddess]' (1948):
All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - In scorn of which I sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom I desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo.
Here, the pararhyme is between the last word of the first two lines 'men' and 'mean'. The vowel sound in 'men' (m-eh-n) is emphasised in 'mean' (m-ee-n). The words are so sonically similar that in this case pararhyme almost mimics the effect of repetition. This is reinforced by the case of actual repetition between lines 3 and 4 that follow.
The poem is dramatic, and the pararhyme draws attention to this by emphasising the divinity of the goddess Graves describes. The pararhyme's reinforcement of 'men' seems to present a dichotomy between how masculinity is presented in the poem and how femininity is presented in divinity.
Emily Dickinson 'Poem 889/Crisis Is A Hair' (1945):
Crisis is a hair
Toward which the forces creep
Past which forces retrograde
If it come in sleep
[...]
It may jolt the hand
That adjusts the hair
That secures Eternity
From presentins Here
Dickinson pararhymes 'hair' and 'here' in this poem, where 'a hair' is a metaphor for 'crisis'. This minor word variation reinforces the alliteration used to end lines 1, 3, and 4 of the final stanza. There is a sense of fluidity felt as each line leads to the next; the pararhyme connects the title of the poem (the beginning) to the final line of the poem, creating a sense of completion. In other words, this adds a cyclical narrative to the poem.
Why use pararhyme?
We use pararhyme in poetry for many of the reasons we use other forms of rhyme. One might use it to:
- Reflect the feelings a poet wants to evoke in the listener/reader.
- Emphasise a particular line of poetry.
- Create a sense of fluidity throughout the poem.
- Add a cyclical narrative to a poem.
Pararhyme - Key takeaways
- A pararhyme is a half-rhyme in which the rhyming words share an identical pattern of consonants but different vowels.
- Pararhymes can occur between two or more lines, or as internal rhymes within a line of poetry.
- The difference between pararhyme and half-rhyme is that the words must have entirely identical consonant patterns to be a pararhyme, while only the final consonants must be identical in order to be a half-rhyme.
- One might use it to: Reflect the feelings a poet wants to evoke in the listener / reader, emphasise a particular line of poetry, create a sense of fluidity throughout the poem, or add a cyclical narrative to the poem.
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