Pararhyme

Pararhymeis aform of rhymein which there is vowel variation within the sameconsonantpattern.

Examples

"Strange Meeting"(1918) is a poem byWilfred Owen,a war poet who used pararhyme in his writing. Here is a part of the poem that shows pararhyme:

Too fast in thought or death to bebestirred.

Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, andstared

With piteous recognition in fixedeyes,

Lifting distressful hands, as if tobless.

And by his smile, I knew that sullenhall,

By his dead smile I knew we stood inHell.

Pararhyme features in the Welshcynghaneddpoetic forms. The following short poem byRobert Gravesis a demonstration in English of thecynghanedd groesform, in which each consonant sound before thecaesurais repeated in the same order after the caesura (Graves notes that thessof 'across' and thesof 'crows' match visually but are not the same sound):

Billet spied,

Bolt sped.

Across field

Crows fled,

Aloft, wounded,

Left one dead.

James Joyceuses a pararhyme inFinnegans Wake(1939) when he says: "First we feel. Then we fall."

References

• "pararhyme, n.". OED Online. March 2012. Oxford University Press.
• Owen W. Strange Meeting. Columbia Granger's Poetry Database [serial online]. n.d.;Available from: Columbia Granger's Poetry Database, Ipswich, MA.
• "Wilfred Owen." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2nd ed. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 291–293. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web.

External links

• http:// wilfredowen.org.uk/home/