Rime riche () is a form of

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

with three identical sounds (phoneme) including the stressed vowel. In classical

French poetry French poetry () is a category of French literature. It may include Francophone poetry composed outside France and poetry written in other languages of France. French prosody and poetics The modern French language does not have a significant str ...

(between Malherbe and

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

) rhymes normally have to be visual too: both sound and

spelling Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is on ...

have to be identical. In

, rhymes are usually classified on the basis of the number of rhyming sounds. A "rime pauvre" ("poor rhyme") includes one common sound at the end of the two rhyming segments. Consonant sounds do not rhyme on their own (''duc'' doesn't rime with ''donc'' despite the identical single consonant at the end), so a "rime pauvre" can only be a vocalic sound. In the following example of "rime pauvre" by

Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditi ...

in '' Andromaque'', the rhyming sound is /y/; identically spelt ''"-ue"'': ''(...) ma vengeance est perdue,'' ''s'il ignore en mourant que c'est moi qui le tue.'' A "rime suffisante" ("sufficient rhyme") includes two identical sounds, one of which must be a vowel. Two consecutive vowel sounds being extremely rare in French, "rimes suffisantes" are usually in the vowel-consonant or consonant-vowel format. In the following example of "rime suffisante" by Racine in ''

Britannicus Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus (12 February AD 41 – 11 February AD 55), usually called Britannicus, was the son of Roman emperor Claudius and his third wife Valeria Messalina. For a time he was considered his father's heir, but that ...

'', /ne/ are the two rhyming sounds, identically spelt ''"-nés"''. ''Au joug depuis longtemps, ils se sont façonnés ;'' ''Ils adorent la main qui les tient enchaînés.'' A "rime riche" ("rich rhyme") includes three identical sounds. In the following example of "rime riche" by Racine in ''

Phèdre ''Phèdre'' (; originally ''Phèdre et Hippolyte'') is a French dramatic tragedy in five acts written in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine, first performed in 1677 at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris. Composition and premiere Wit ...

'', /a ʃe/ are the three rhyming sounds, identically spelt ''"-achée"'' . ''Ce n'est plus une ardeur dans mes veines cachée,'' ''C'est Vénus tout entière à sa proie attachée.'' There is no canonical name for rhymes over three identical sounds. They are frowned upon in classical French poetry.

References

See also