Half rhyme
Half-rhyme or slant-rhyme, sometimes called near-rhyme or imperfect rhyme, are words that come near rhyming, but does not really rhyme.[1][2]
Examples [edit]
You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals
So let's do it like they do on the discover channel
The Bloodhound Gang, "The Bad Touch" (1999)
The following example uses alternating half-rhymes (on/moon, bodies/ladies):
When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies
(Yeats, "Lines written in Dejection")
American poet Emily Dickinson also used half rhyme frequently in her works.[3] In her poem "Hope is the thing with feathers" the half rhyme appears in the second and fourth lines. In the following example the rhyme is soul/all.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.
Moses ibn Ezra, 12th century Hebrew poet and poetry theoretician, terms the practice of poets to use half-rhyme "cow-rhyming."[citation needed]
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Ian Ousby (23 February 1996). The Cambridge Paperback Guide to Literature in English. Cambridge University Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-521-43627-4. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ "Literary Terms and Definitions S". Web.cn.edu. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
- ^ Lilia Melani (February 24, 2009), Emily Dickinson: An Overview, Department of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, retrieved 2009-06-22
