Re: Metrical meanderings

It's called "internal" rhyme.  Middle Welsh poetry does it all the time.
I'm not familiar with this particular pattern, but often MW poetry will have
an extra foot that carries the rhyme--you see such things in Middle English
ballads, and Chaucer parodies them in Sir Thopas:

Into his sadel he clamb anon
And priketh over stile and stoon
An elf-queene for t'espye,
Til he so longe hath riden and goon
That he foond, in a pryve woon,
The contree of Fairye
                       So wilde!
For in that contree was ther noon
That to him durste ride or goon
Neither wyf ne childe.


But I've seen a lot of internal rhyme (not like the above!) in contemporary
poetry as well, especially combined with consonance and assonance.  Gerard
Manley Hopkins comes to mind and his imitation of earlier Welsh poetic
embellishments.  And when I write, I vastly prefer this kind of rhyme to
end-rhyme.

As for the consonant cluster split, it's more often found in lyrics to
popular songs, I think.  So you have a rhyme on "isle," and you "cheat" a
little by rhyming it with "chile-din your arms."

Sally

PS: Irish rhyme is interesting in that it rhymes "strong" and "weak" rhyme
patterns together:  see/country, mile/profile, best/contest, etc.  Your song
below doesn't have the second rhyme arrive "in passing"-- it is always in
penultimate position, so very structured actually.  I like it.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 10:51 AM
Subject: Metrical meanderings


> This concerns pronunciation in the context of English, but it is not
> YAEPT.  It concerns the way consonant clusters split up, and for once
> I'm more curious how it works in other languages than I am in
> differences between dialects within English. :)
>
> The thought began while I was listening to the song "Total Eclipse of
> the Heart", written by the great Jim Steinman (and yeah, recorded by
> Bonnie Tyler - might not have been as big a hit if sung by Steinman's
> regular partner Meat Loaf...)
>
> Anyway, it has an interesting rhyme pattern:
>
> (Turn around)
> Every now and then I get a little bit lonely
> And you're never coming 'ROUND
>
> (Turn around)
> Every now and then I get a little bit tired
> Of listening to the SOUND of my tears...
>
> And so on.  The first of each pair of stanzas ends on the rhyme, while
> the second one only rhymes in passing before continuing right on with
> nary a pause.  I'm sure there's a word for this pattern, but I don't
> know it.  In any case, one later verse in particular struck me:
>
> (Turn around)
> Every now and then I get a little bit restless
> And I dream of something WILD
>
> (Turn around)
> Every now and then I feel a little bit helpless
> And I'm lying like a CHILD in your arms . . .
>
> (Lyrics may not be exact; I didn't Google them but am relying on
> memory).  The odd thing is that, because of the en passant nature of
> the rhyme, this pair doesn't actually rhyme for me.  It sounds
> slightly off, because in connected speech and song I break "child in"
> between the L and the D, so the phrase "child in your" comes out as
> something like /'tSajl.dn=.jO`r\/.  If I intentonally lump the -d in
> with the first syllable, then it rhymes but sounds unnatural, like I'm
> delaying the onset of the "in" syllable.
>
> I'm guessing this shuffling around of syllable boundaries in the
> vicinity of consonant clusters happens quite regularly and just
> usually goes unnoticed.  I was wondering if any languages had phonemic
> distinctions based on such boundaries, where, say, "ka-ching" and
> "catching" and "cat shing" would all mean different things, and the
> distinction would lie not in the emphasis or vowel quality but in the
> location of the syllable boundary...
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
>

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