Entry 110 — The Three Varieties of Rhyme

I’ve come up with new terms for two of the three kinds of rhyme in my poetics.  One is Chyme-Rhyme for standard rhyme (e.g., “bat/cat”).  The other is  Rhyle-Rhyme for the kind of rhyme I’ve called various names, “Backward Rhyme,” being the most frequent (e.g. “bat/badge”).  My name for the third kind of rhyme in my poetics is Rim-Rhyme, the perfect name coined many years ago for it (e.g. “bat/bet”).

The new names follow the logic of “Rim-Rhyme” by demonstrating the sound of the kind of rhyme they name, but not the construction, as “Rim-Rhyme” does.   The “Chyme” of regular rhyme seems fitting, too.  As for “Rhyle,” well, it’s a kind of rhyme that riles traditionalists, and I couldn’t come up with a better “rhy-consonant” word to use.

I should haven’t to explain why I consider all three of my kinds of rhyme valid rhymes, but while some accept rim-rhyme because of Wilfred Owen, I think no one has accepted rhyle-rhyme.  But it seems sensible to call such a combination a rhyme rather than an alliteration/assonance.  And it seems sensible to call any pair or great number of unidentical syllables sharing two sounds to be rhymes.

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