Pararhyme is a

half-rhyme Perfect rhyme—also called full rhyme, exact rhyme, or true rhyme—is a form of rhyme between two words or phrases, satisfying the following conditions: *The stressed vowel sound in both words must be identical, as well as any subsequent s ...

in which there is vowel variation within the same

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

pattern. " Strange Meeting" (1918) is a poem by

Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced by ...

, 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 be bestirred. :Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared :With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, :Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless. :And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, :By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell. Pararhyme features in the Welsh

cynghanedd In Welsh-language poetry, ''cynghanedd'' (, literally "harmony") is the basic concept of sound-arrangement within one line, using stress, alliteration and rhyme. The various forms of ''cynghanedd'' show up in the definitions of all formal Welsh v ...

poetic forms. The following short poem by

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...

is a demonstration in English of the ''cynghanedd groes'' form, in which each consonant sound before the

caesura image:Music-caesura.svg, 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for "cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a Metre (poetry), metrical pause or break in a Verse (poetry), ...

is repeated in the same order after the caesura (Graves notes that the ''ss'' of 'across' and the ''s'' of 'crows' match visually but are not the same sound): :Billet spied, :Bolt sped. :Across field :Crows fled, :Aloft, wounded, :Left one dead.

Examples

* ''hill/hell'' * ''lover/liver'' * ''live/love''

References

{{reflist *"pararhyme, n.". OED Online. March 2012. Oxford University Press. *Owen W. Strange Meeting. Columbia Granger's Poetry Database erial 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://www.wilfredowen.org.uk/home/ Rhyme