This is a genuine question, but I thought it would be more fun to put it in verse...

[steepholm]

I like the taste of rhymes that aren't,
At least not quite; that are half, para, slant,
Aural obliquities, words nor right nor true,
But verging near. Though decadent,
They suit me fine: their Epicurean swerve,
That syncopated shimmy, jives the universe.

Time's scythe will flatten vowels, bring diphthongs down,
And words that chimed on Shakespeare's tongue
On ours must be untold:
For "loved" and "proved"
Will not rhyme as of old.

Received Pronunciaton too can warp words' weft:
"Wordsworth's 'matter/water' are full rhymes",
As Tony Harrison made plain.
Now, as in Wordsworth's time,
Old Cumbrians with leeches
Are elocution teachers.

So, is half rhyme an accident of change?
And was it, to begin with, quite unmeant?
Is this poetic helper
Merely a felix culpa?
If so, I think it apt - that ragged rhyme,
Should wander from the straight and narrow line.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

So why do I now have the poetic gems of William T McGonagall running around my head? :o)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine! But do you know when half-rhyme began to be recognized as a technique in English poetry, rather than as an unintended consequence of language change? And did the latter inspire the former?

I'm also thinking of the way in which people used to think Chaucer a less regular poet than he actually was, because they were unaware of ME pronunciation.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure when it becomes accepted form although I agree with you that people didn't always understand Chaucer's rhyming patterns and even less someone like Langland, writing in alliterative northern ME and let's not even go near Henryson or Dunbar!

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Statements about how words were pronounced historically often seem to be based on what the word was rhymed with in poetry of the period. It seems to me that this research assumption begs several obvious questions.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I agree. Puns are perhaps more persuasive, though.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Sheer love.

Nine

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Happy to oblige!

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Is it a Birmingham accent that allows Blake to rhyme eye with symmetreye?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Are yow suggestin' that a Broom accint sounds fooneye? :o)

The bard was, after all, a west midlander!

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Not at all, I'm a great admirer of Blake, who channeled all kinds of ghosts and spirits.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I do but jest! I like a West Midlands accent, I have to admit and this isn't personal bias- I'm a Maid of Kent. :o)

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Probably better than being a Kentish Maid. But then I'm an incomer.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Oh, considerably better than being a Kentish Maid, believe me! We don't have tails............

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

Mind you, on the other side it's Planet Thanet. Or Sheppey across the watter.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

London on sea, you mean?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I've only heard that phrase applied to Brighton.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

That's POSH London on Sea :o)

[mount-oregano.livejournal.com]

I'm a USAnian, and someday I must write a poem that only works in Texan accent. Y'all.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

*love*

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Pleased you like it!

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to applaud your question poem, though I have no idea about the answer. :)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Wilfred Owen certainly used slant rhymes deliberately.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Henry Vaughan is credited with being the first poet writing in English to use it as an ornament.

See for example:

My Soul, there is a Countrie
Far beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged Centrie
All skilfull in the wars…

Vaughan was a native Welsh speaker and systematic use of half-rhyme is a feature of Welsh prosody.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Well, that makes sense. I knew that Welsh poetry used half-rhyme, and a bilingual poet is likely conduit for its transmission.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall - it might have been on Six Centuries of Verse that French poetry didn't rhyme in the same way, so it might come from a European origin? I may have hallucinated the whole thing.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. wolfinthewood (above) mentions that half-rhyme is a standard feature of Welsh prosody, but I don't know whether it features in French - or, if so, since when.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

I am responding mainly to have this all in my inbox, but also to ask whether you'd seen my coupla posts on rhyme (more TK).

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes! I read and enjoyed them, and it's very likely that they had already got me wondering about the history of half-rhyme when I came across the video on Shakespearian pronunciation (linked above), which sparked this post.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful!

(Here via sartorias)

Time will indeed bring dipthongs down, more's the pity.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Delighted you enjoyed it!