The word "rhyme" has a complex etymology. It goes back to the Old French concept, meaning "sequence." But perhaps the French word itself is a distorted borrowing from Latin, and the Latin token, in turn, goes back to the ancient Greek language.
Modern schoolchildren get acquainted with such concepts as rhyme, rhyming methods, but this poetic theme is much richer, and in general many of its questions are accessible and interesting for the school student.
From the history of rhyme
In any case, the original meaning of the term was not the same as it is now. It was not about the phonetic similarity of the end of poetic lines, but about rhythmic ordering. It could not be otherwise, since ancient poetry, in principle, was not rhymed, the methods of rhyming appeared there only spontaneously, for example, they often slipped into Catullus' poetry.
But the theoretical understanding and, accordingly, the rhyming requirements were still very far away. Poetry, including Russian, came to rhymes gradually, gradually increasing the number of rhymed lines.
Rhyme in modern Russian poetry
Today, rhyme is a recognized attribute of poetic speech, however, in poetry, especially in Western Europe, the opposite tendency is clearly visible - the rejection of rhymed verse. It is difficult to predict how powerful it will turn out, given that today we are witnessing a struggle between supporters and opponents of the “classic” rhyming verse.
In modern Russian poetry, it still dominates, both classical and modified rhyming methods are used, and in the literary heritage of past centuries, in quantitative terms, the advantage of verses with rhymes over white was overwhelming.
Rhyme Evaluation Criteria
When talking about rhyme, you should immediately avoid a few common mistakes. Firstly, it is necessary to abandon such a negative definition as “bad rhyme”. In itself, it is neither good nor bad, it all depends on the tasks of the poem and on the contexts of culture. Say, in the 18th century, Trediakovsky demanded that poets exclusively feminine rhymes (emphasis on the penultimate syllable in a line), and male rhymes (emphasis on the last syllable) considered a sign of bad taste.
Today, this criterion, to put it mildly, does not work, and a clause, as well as a formal assessment of which rhyming methods are used by the author, is not a determining parameter, the main attention is paid to the depth of the work.
At the end of the 18th century, almost exclusively grammatical rhymes were considered “good”, that is, only identical parts of speech and grammatical forms were used. Today, many poets seek to avoid this as a sign of a poor poetic dictionary. This, by the way, is also a mistake, because in some cases it is rhyme mediocrity that is a necessary condition for an aesthetic effect. For example, in children's poetry unexpected and spectacular combinations are most often not needed, the child’s consciousness is not ready for their perception, he more easily feels standard and simple ways. And this applies not only to children's poetry.
In the famous ballad by A. Akhmatova, “The Gray-eyed King,” the tragedy of losing a loved one is shaded by the everydayness of everything that happens. And here, not only the actions and reactions of others are important, but also standard grammatical rhymes (found - left, woken up - I'll take a look, etc.) and rhyming methods.
Mayakovsky, however, insisted that the rhyme should be unexpected, to attract the attention of the reader, but this is not an absolute requirement. This is true in relation to the poetry of Mayakovsky himself and his associates, who have a very strong constructivist beginning in poetry, and accordingly, the role of deliberate reception increases.
But with respect to poetry as a whole, this thesis is erroneous. It all depends on the artistic task. For example, the method of rhyming “Golden Grove Dissuaded” by S. Yesenin is traditional, it is a classic cross rhyme, the first and third lines are female, and the second and fourth are male.
And in general, the poem does not have any vivid rhymes. But at the same time it is an undoubted poetic masterpiece.
The boundaries of the rhyme sensation
In Russian cultural perception, rhyme is realized, as a rule, when the last stressed vowel and the consonant next to it coincide. In the English and German traditions, a stressed vowel is enough. That is, we do not consider rhyming, for example, the words “window” and “bucket”, but perceive it as rhyme “window - stain” or the names “Windows - Vedrov”. However, in real poetry there are much more complex cases of matching line endings. For example, a poet can use a dissonant rhyme when coincidences of line endings are not random, but the last stressed vowel is just different. Such, for example, is the ironic poem by A. Chebyshev with the characteristic name “Dissonance”, which clearly indicates the randomness of the technique:
Kohl rolls repentance on you,
Especially when the full moon is
There will be atonement for you,
And great discouragement will come.
The whole wife will be caressed right away,
Her breasts are splashed with tears.
From insomnia books are covered ...
Even the seeds will be husked.
And then you thaw in your soul
Although, of course, pretty much risk
Because you might sweat
And you will have a sore throat.
Can this poem be called rhymed? From the point of view of the standard definition of rhyme - no, because the rhyme criteria are violated. From the point of view of “dissent,” as they used to call rhyme, undoubtedly, because we have before us the clearly thought-out method of the nonrandom uniformity of line endings.
Clauses
In general, according to the adopted "standard" classification rhymes are usually described for various reasons. Firstly, by the nature of the clause (end of line). In other words, by where the last stress is. If in the last position, the rhyme is called masculine (again - blood), if on the penultimate - feminine (backgammon - freedom), if on the third syllable from the end - dactylic (chlodno - glod). Very rarely, but there are also so-called hyperdactyl rhymes, when the last stress is located on the fourth and further syllables from the end (constraining - charming).
Stanza position
It is about the position in the stanza that is mainly told to students in the classroom while studying the topic “Rhyme. Ways to rhyme. " Grade 5 of high school involves not only introductory, but also practical lessons.
According to the position in the stanza (most often we are talking about quatrains), the rhyme can be continuous (AAAA), cross (ABAW) - the cross way of rhyming is the most obvious from the point of view of practical exercises in the analysis of rhymes, pair (AABB) and ring (ABBA).
In more complex stanzas, other combinations of rhymes are also possible, for example, the classic construction of an octave stanza will look like this: AWAVAWSS.
Other grounds for classification
Often rhymes are classified on other grounds (phonetically rich, that is, sonorous, and phonetically poor; accurate and approximate; monosyllabic and compound, that is, consisting of a combination of two words, for example, “we grow up to a hundred years without old age”).
There is no single mandatory criterion for rhyme classifications; only the most popular grounds are described here.