{"id":2526,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2526"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:13","slug":"15-rhyme-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/27-letters-on-poetry-and-art\/15-rhyme-vol-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","title":{"rendered":"-15_Rhyme.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"0\" style=\"border-collapse: collapse\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n\t<span lang=\"en-gb\">  <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><b><font size=\"4\">Rhyme <\/font><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><b>Rhyme and Inspiration <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>Some rhyme with ease &#8213;others find a difficulty. The coming of the rhyme is a part of the inspiration just like the coming of the<br \/>\nform of the language. The rhyme often comes of itself and brings the language and connection of ideas with it. For all these things<br \/>\nare quite ready behind somewhere and it is only a matter of reception and transmission<br \/>\n&#8213;it is the physical mind and brain<br \/>\nthat make the difficulty.  <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><font size=\"2\">2 February 1934<br \/>\n<\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><b>Imperfect Rhymes <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>These [<i>&#8220;life&#8221; and &#8220;cliff&#8221;, &#8220;smile&#8221; and &#8220;will&#8221;<\/i>] are called in English imperfect rhymes and can be freely but not too freely used. Only you have to understand the approximations and kinships<br \/>\nof vowel sounds in English, otherwise you will produce illegitimate children like &#8220;splendour&#8221; and &#8220;wonder&#8221; which is not a<br \/>\nrhyme but an assonance.  <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><font size=\"2\">19 December 1935 <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nIt is no use applying a Bengali ear to English rhythms any more<br \/>\nthan a French ear to English or an English ear to French metres. The Frenchman may object to English blank verse because his<br \/>\nown ear misses the rhyme or the Englishman to the French Alexandrine because he finds it rhetorical and monotonous.<br \/>\nIrrelevant objections both. Imperfect rhymes are regarded in English metre as a source of charm in the rhythmic field bringing<br \/>\nin possibilities of delicate variation in the constant clang of exact rhymes. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> <font size=\"2\">21 November 1935 <\/font> <\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> *<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-155<\/font><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&#8220;Lure&#8221; and &#8220;more&#8221; are rhymes? It is enough to make the English prosodists of the past turn in their graves or if they are in heaven<br \/>\nto make their imaginative hair angelic or archangelic stand up erect on their beatified heads. I am aware that modernist poets<br \/>\nrhyme anything with everything. They would not shudder even in rhyming &#8220;hand&#8221; with &#8220;fiend&#8221; or &#8220;heat&#8221; with &#8220;bit&#8221; or &#8220;kid&#8221;,<br \/>\n\t&#8213;probably they would do it with a wicked leer of triumph. But all the same crime is crime even if it becomes fashionable. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p><font size=\"2\">21 May 1937 <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\nI never heard of two pronunciations of &#8220;lure&#8221; and &#8220;pure&#8221; one of which approximates to &#8220;lore&#8221; and &#8220;pore&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8213;of course they<br \/>\nmay exist in some dialect, but anything that would make &#8220;pure&#8221; rhyme with &#8220;more&#8221; seems to be horribly impure and &#8220;lure&#8221;<br \/>\nrhyming with &#8220;gore&#8221; does not lure me at all. I am aware of Arjava&#8217;s rhyming of &#8220;bore&#8221; and &#8220;law&#8221; etc.,<br \/>\n&#8213;but that is quite<br \/>\nnew as a permissible imperfect rhyme &#8213;&#8221;dawn&#8221; and &#8220;morn&#8221; were in my time held up as a vulgarism, the type of all that is<br \/>\ndamnable. As for &#8220;decrease&#8221; and &#8220;earthiness&#8221; that is quite a different matter from &#8220;lure&#8221; and &#8220;more&#8221;; the former are long<br \/>\nand short of the same vowel sounds, long e sound and short e sound, the latter are two quite different vowel sounds. If you<br \/>\ncan rhyme a pure long u sound with a pure long o sound, there is no reason why you should not rhyme Cockney fashion &#8220;day&#8221;<br \/>\nwith &#8220;high&#8221;, &#8220;paid&#8221; with &#8220;wide&#8221;, and by a little extension why not &#8220;jade&#8221; with &#8220;solitude&#8221;. Finally we can come to the rhyming<br \/>\nof any word with any word provided there is the same or a similar consonant at the end. Modernism admits imperfect<br \/>\n&#8213; very imperfect rhymes, but that is really a different principle and cannot be extended to blank verse, mongrelising all similar<br \/>\nending sounds. <\/p>\n<p align=\"right\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\"> <font size=\"2\">22 May 1937<br \/>\n &nbsp; <\/font><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\" style=\"line-height: 150%;text-indent: 25pt;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"line-height: 150%;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0\">\n\t\t\t<font size=\"2\">Page-156<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rhyme &nbsp; Rhyme and Inspiration &nbsp; Some rhyme with ease &#8213;others find a difficulty. The coming of the rhyme is a part of the inspiration&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-27-letters-on-poetry-and-art","wpcat-51-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}