Romantic rhyme and the airs that stray

Romantic poetry is striking for the richness and variety of its rhymes. If it is concerned to resist the constraints rhyme might impose, it also harnesses those constraints as a source of creativity, stimulating both comedy and pathos. This essay shows that Romantic poets find in rhyme a resource wh...

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Main Authors: Clarkson, O, Hodgson, A
Format: Journal article
Published: Edinburgh University Press 2017
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author Clarkson, O
Hodgson, A
author_facet Clarkson, O
Hodgson, A
author_sort Clarkson, O
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description Romantic poetry is striking for the richness and variety of its rhymes. If it is concerned to resist the constraints rhyme might impose, it also harnesses those constraints as a source of creativity, stimulating both comedy and pathos. This essay shows that Romantic poets find in rhyme a resource which amplifies many of their defining concerns: a fascination with incongruous states of vision, a desire to reconcile oneness and variety, and an aspiration to capture without arresting the evanescence of experience. Rhyme in the hands of Romantic poets, we suggest, speaks of disharmonies as much as of harmonies, and we conclude by pointing to the ways that later poets are both challenged and inspired by Romantic rhyme.
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spelling oxford-uuid:80501a6e-ddf5-490d-ae94-dd6b58a9c60c2022-03-26T21:22:25ZRomantic rhyme and the airs that strayJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:80501a6e-ddf5-490d-ae94-dd6b58a9c60cSymplectic Elements at OxfordEdinburgh University Press2017Clarkson, OHodgson, ARomantic poetry is striking for the richness and variety of its rhymes. If it is concerned to resist the constraints rhyme might impose, it also harnesses those constraints as a source of creativity, stimulating both comedy and pathos. This essay shows that Romantic poets find in rhyme a resource which amplifies many of their defining concerns: a fascination with incongruous states of vision, a desire to reconcile oneness and variety, and an aspiration to capture without arresting the evanescence of experience. Rhyme in the hands of Romantic poets, we suggest, speaks of disharmonies as much as of harmonies, and we conclude by pointing to the ways that later poets are both challenged and inspired by Romantic rhyme.
spellingShingle Clarkson, O
Hodgson, A
Romantic rhyme and the airs that stray
title Romantic rhyme and the airs that stray
title_full Romantic rhyme and the airs that stray
title_fullStr Romantic rhyme and the airs that stray
title_full_unstemmed Romantic rhyme and the airs that stray
title_short Romantic rhyme and the airs that stray
title_sort romantic rhyme and the airs that stray
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