Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. J. Arthur Greenwood), “Marginale on Rhyme,” Edgar A. Poe: The Rationale of Verse, a Preliminary edition, 1968, pp. 84-87 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 84:]

[MARGINALE ON RHYME](1)

The effect derivable from well-managed rhyme is very imperfectly understood. Conventionally “rhyme” implies merely close similarity of sound at the ends of verse,(2) and it is really curious to observe how long mankind have been content with their limitation of the idea. What, in rhyme, first and principally pleases, may be referred to the human sense or appreciation of equality — the common element, as might be easily shown, of all the gratification we derive from music in its most extended sense(3) — very especially in the modifications of metre and rhythm. We see, for example, a crystal, and are immediately interested by the equality between the sides and angles of one of its faces — but on bringing to view a second face, in all respects similar to the first, our pleasure seems to be squared(4) — on bringing to view a third, it appears to be cubed, and so on: I have no doubt, indeed, that the delight experienced, if measurable, would(5) be found to have exact mathematical relations, such, or nearly such, as I suggest — that is to say, as far as a certain point, beyond which there would be a decrease, in similar relations. Now here, as the ultimate result of analysis, we reach the sense of mere equality, or rather the human delight in this sense; and it was an instinct, rather than a clear comprehension of this delight as a principle, which, in the first instance, led the poet to attempt an increase of the effect arising from the mere similarity (that is to say equality) between two sounds — led him, I say, to attempt increasing this effect by making a secondary equalization, in placing the rhymes at equal distances — that is, at the ends of lines of equal length. In this manner, rhyme and the termination of the line grew connected in men's thoughts — grew into a conventionalism — the principle being lost sight of altogether. And it was simply because Pindaric verses had, before this epoch, existed — i.e. verses of unequal length — that rhymes were subsequently found at unequal distances. It was for this reason solely, I say — for none more profound — rhyme had come to be regarded as of right appertaining to the end of verse — and here we complain that the matter has finally rested. [page 85:]

But it is clear that there was much more to be considered. So far, the sense of equality alone, entered the effect; or, if this equality was slightly varied, it was varied only through an accident — the accident of the existence of Pindaric metres. It will be seen that the rhymes were always anticipated. The eye, catching the end of a verse, whether long or short, expected, for the ear, a rhyme. The great element of unexpectedness was not dreamed of — that is to say, of novelty — of originality. “But,” says Lord Bacon, (how justly!) “there is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proportions.”(6) Take away this element of strangeness — of unexpectedness — of novelty — of originality — call [page 86:] it what we will — and all that is ethereal in loveliness is lost at once. We lose — we miss the unknown — the vague — the uncomprehended, because offered before we have time to examine and comprehend. We lose, in short, all that assimilates the beauty of earth with what we dream of the beauty of Heaven.

Perfection of rhyme is attainable only in the combination of the two elements, Equality and Unexpectedness. But as evil cannot exist without good, so unexpectedness must arise from expectedness. We do not contend for mere arbitrariness of rhyme. In the first place, we must have equi-distant or regularly recurring rhymes, to form the basis, expectedness, out of which arises the element, unexpectedness, by the introduction of rhymes, not arbitrarily, but with an eye to the greatest amount of unexpectedness. We should not introduce them, for example, at such points that the entire line is a multiple of the syllables preceding the points. When, for instance, I write —

I produce more, to be sure, but not remarkably more than the ordinary effect of rhymes regularly recurring at the ends of lines; for the number of syllables in the whole verse is merely a multiple of the number of syllables preceding the rhyme introduced at the middle, and there is still left, therefore, a certain degree of expectedness. What there is of the element, unexpectedness, is addressed, in fact, to the eye only — for the ear divides the verse into two ordinary lines, thus:

I obtain, however, the whole effect of unexpectedness, when I write —

N.B. It is very commonly supposed that rhyme, as it now ordinarily exists, is of modern invention — but see the “Clouds” of Aristophanes.(9) Hebrew verse, however, did not include it — the terminations of the lines, where most distinct, never showing any thing of the kind.(10)

[[Footnotes]]

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