B.V.Tomashevsky. Stylistics and versification (Rhyme)

RHYME- consonance at the end of two or more words. Sound repetition at the end of a rhythmic unit:

My uncle made the most honest rules,
When, seriously, I couldn’t,
He forced himself to respect
And it’s better to invent | I couldn’t” (Pushkin).

In connection with the position of stress in a rhyming word, there are three kinds of rhyme:

Man's rhyme, where the stress is on the last syllable of the rhymed verse. These are the simplest rhymes: (I am mine, moYa is a pig, rAZ - kvass - bAS - us);
Women's rhyme, where the stress is on the penultimate syllable. They contain more sounds: VINA - PICTURE; PLANS - WOUNDS; STRANGE – hazy; flock - big, edge - playing;
Three syllable rhyme, dactylic, in which the stress is on the third syllable from the end. After the stressed vowel there are two syllables (WORN - SEADS, STOCCHKA - BONE, TRAINS - DRUNKER).

There is also a division:

Pantorhythm- all words in a line and in the next one rhyme with each other (for example, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd words of two lines rhyme, respectively)
Through rhyme- runs through the entire work (for example - one rhyme in each line)
Echo rhyme- the second line consists of one word or short phrase rhymed with the first line.

Rhymes there are accurate and inaccurate.

IN precise enough rhyme match up:
a) last stressed vowel,
b) sounds starting from the last stressed vowel.

Exact rhyme A rhyme like “writes – hears – breathes” (Okudzhava) is also considered. Also classified as accurate are the so-called. iotized rhymes: “Tani – spells” (ASP), “again – the hilt” (Firnven).

An example of a stanza with exact rhymes (it’s the sounds that match, not the letters):

It's nice, squeezing the katana,
Turn the enemy into a vinaigrette.
Katana is a samurai's dream
But better than that is a pistol. (Gareth)

IN imprecise rhyme Not all sounds are the same, starting from the last stressed vowel: “towards - cutting”, or “book - King” in Medvedev. There can be much more imprecise rhymes than exact ones, and they can greatly decorate and diversify a verse.

Rhymes parts of speech

Verb - noun:

So many of them fell into this abyss,
I'll open up in the distance!
The day will come when I too will disappear
From the surface of the earth. (M. Tsvetaeva).

Verb - adverb:

You were everything. But because you
Now dead, my Bobo, you have become
Nothing - more precisely, a clot of emptiness.
Which is also, as you might think, a lot. (I. Brodsky)

Noun, adjective:

Like a conquistador in an iron shell,
I'm on the road and walking happily
Then resting in a joyful garden,
Then leaning toward abysses and abysses. (N. Gumilev)

Noun - adverb:

What are my friends, poets, making noise about?
In a restless house until late?
I hear an argument. And I see silhouettes
Against the dim background of a late window. (N. Rubtsov)

Noun - numeral:

You can't see the birds, but you can hear them.
The sniper, languishing with spiritual thirst,
Either an order, or a letter from his wife,
Sitting on a branch, reads twice... (I. Brodsky)

Noun - preposition:

Blue Saxon Forest.
Dreams of basalt relatives,
A world without a future, without -
Simply - tomorrow. (I. Brodsky)

Noun - conjunction:

There will be no other us! Neither
Here, not there, where everyone is equal.
That's why our days
In this place they are numbered.

Adjective - adverb:

You won't take my soul as I live,
Not falling like feathers.
Life, you often rhyme with: falsely, -
The singing ear is unmistakable!

Adjective - pronoun:

Adjective - numeral:

He is silent and unsociable,
Always alone, always alone...

I often meet in literary communities, forums and websites both ardent opponents of “imprecise rhymes” and their supporters. You have probably often wondered: which rhymes are acceptable and which are not? After all, it’s no secret that in poetry many rhymes are often classified as “come me il faut” (decent) or “bad manners” (bad manners). Let's try to understand this issue and dispel all sorts of myths.
What is a rhyme anyway? The most accurate and understandable explanation is given by Georgy Shengeli in his famous work “Technique of Verse”:
“Rhyme is the consonance of one or several words, which consists in the fact that their stressed vowels are the same or corresponding (a-a, u-u, a-ya, u-yu, etc.), and all subsequent sounds until the end of the word sound approximately are the same and follow the same order in both words. It follows from this that the number of syllables giving consonance must be the same.” (G.A. Shengeli. Verse technique. M.: Goslitizdat, 1960. – 312 p.)

Many, even novice poets, know that rhymes are classified into:
MEN - the stress falls on the last syllable: korAl - stole.
WOMEN - to the penultimate one: fish - blocks
DACTYLIC – stress on the third syllable from the end: doubts – eclipses
HYPERDACTYLIC (used much less frequently than others) - the stress falls on the fourth syllable or further: sloppy - coughing, etc...

Most often, lines with different types of rhyme alternate, but quite often there are entirely masculine, entirely feminine, or entirely dactylic rhymes in one poem. Given the existing limitations, many are looking for other forms and ratios. A natural question arises: should the given rhyme be strictly adhered to, or are some deviations possible? And what exactly are clear and fuzzy rhymes?

First, let me look a little into history. In Russian literature in the 19th century, the prevailing view was that rhymes should not only be accurate, but there should be a complete coincidence of all sounds included in the sound repetition. An illustrative example:
“My uncle had the most honest rules,
When, seriously, I couldn’t,
He forced himself to respect
And it’s better to invent | I couldn’t” (A.S. Pushkin)

But such strict adherence to the canons leads to a limited supply of rhyming words and ultimately threatens repetition and cliches. I think few people will like banality and stereotypes in literature. Who is interested in repeating the same limited supply of hackneyed rhymes?! Pushkin himself, an excerpt from whose poem is given above, understood this well and pointed out the limited supply of rhymes. He also predicted the transition to blank verse. Thank God, Russian poetry did not completely switch to blank verse, but began to find new solutions.
New opportunities for many authors are given by the understanding that rhymes are distinguished not only by which syllable from the end of the line is stressed, but also by the degree of consonance between the endings of the lines. This is where the main difference between exact and imprecise rhyme arises. When using precise rhyme, not only the stressed sounds at the end of lines are consonant, but also the syllables located behind them. Imprecise rhyme is characterized by differences in the sound of consonants in unstressed syllables located at the end of lines.
Example of an exact rhyme:

“I let my family leave,
All loved ones have long been in disarray,
And the everlasting loneliness
Everything is complete in the heart and nature.” (B. Pasternak)

An example of an imprecise rhyme:

"In the human body
ninety percent water
like, probably, in Paganini
ninety percent love! (A. Voznesensky)

Of course, no one will call Voznesensky a mediocrity or an amateur. From this we conclude that in Russian poetry there is a place for imprecise rhyme. But which one? Is it always appropriate? In what cases is its use justified? A good explanation is given by the Russian writer and poet Yuri Nesterenko:
“The most justified type of imprecise rhyme is a rhyme in which a slight dissonance between syllables is compensated by a large number of consonant syllables (sometimes even words): garages - townspeople, executioners - received, yellow - fuck you. Such rhymes may be even better than exact rhymes, in which fewer syllables match; at the same time, in such rhymes it is necessary that at least some syllables, and first of all the stressed one, coincide exactly.

Another - special - case of imprecise rhyme is the deliberate use of such a rhyme (or pseudo-rhyme) as a device on which the entire poem is built. Usually, words are selected as “rhyming” words in which the consonants and unstressed syllables are consonant, but the stressed vowels are different. Examples could be
to serve “One Poetess” (“I am infected with normal classicism”) by I. Brodsky, “Interlude IV” (“First, there was not enough electricity”) by M. Shcherbakov, “Disso-rondeli” (“Bumble-bee cello”) And .Severyanina (I give both the “official” names of the poems and their characteristic lines - for easier recognition). It is curious, by the way, that in the first two examples pseudo-rhymes are used only as a background, and formally the frame is built on the usual exact rhyme. I will emphasize once again, however, that such a technique should permeate the entire poem; if it flashes in one or two places, then this is not a technique, but a hack.”

So, we see two examples when the use of imprecise rhyme is justified:
1) When the dissonance is redeemed by a large number of consonant syllables, which, in principle, only enriches the rhyme.
2) When the entire work is deliberately written in such a “fuzzy” or “pseudo-rhyme”, as a result of which it is clear that this is a special form.
All other cases show that the author made a grave mistake. So, I rhymed “mountain” with “sea” - correct it and have respect for the reader!
In addition, some classifications mention rich, poor and homonymous rhymes. Rich rhyme is the use of consonant syllables at the end of lines of a poem, not only after the last stressed sounds, but also before them. The use of homonymous rhyme, in essence, comes down to placing homonyms (words that have different meanings, but the same sound) at the end of lines.
For example: “I’m calling” - “I’m going”, “near” - “earth”, “water” - “at home”. We see that here words rhyme in which only the stressed vowels are consonant. I won’t say that this is not acceptable, but good poem There should not be many such rhymes. And poor rhymes also include rhyming words of the same grammatical form (case or verbal). There is a lot of talk about verbal rhyme and almost everyone is unanimous in the opinion that it is primitive and should be used to a minimum. In many respects I agree. It’s unpleasant to read poetry where everything is “meet” - “rush”, “success” - “stayed”, “shout” - “be silent”, etc. Of course, it is stupid to categorically avoid ending a line with a verb, because by doing so we ignore all the richness and diversity of our language, but still, this should be done infrequently and, if possible, rhyme with another part of speech. For example: “became” - “a lot”, “get out” - “brother”, etc.

So many of them fell into this ABYSS,
I'll open up in the distance!
The day will come when I too will DISAPPEAR
From the surface of the earth. (M. Tsvetaeva).

And the last type of rhyme that I want to give is SINGLE-ROOT rhymes. Most experts categorically do not recommend using such rhymes. This is not only primitive, but also speaks of the poet’s underdeveloped vocabulary and inability to replace a word with a synonym. Example: “obliquely” - “slanting”, “opinion” - “doubt”. The paradox is that such rhymes are the most accurate. Well, what could be more precise than “boot” - “low shoe”?
The worst version of a single-root rhyme is a verbal single-root rhyme: for example, “came” - “approached” or “hacked” - “chopped”. Such rhymes are primitive even for two reasons - they are not only the same root, but also verbal!

The principles presented in the article, of course, apply mainly to Russian poetry, since other languages ​​have their own phonetic features and rules of versification associated with this. But general principles have similarities throughout the world of poetry.
In the article I have not yet mentioned internal rhymes, assonances, superscripts, wedges and other types of complex rhymes - I don’t want to overload the reader, and my main goal was to point out the types of rhymes that should be rarely used or completely avoided. But, nevertheless, I hope that beginning and even experienced poets will find a lot of useful information in my article.

List of sources:
1) G.A. Shengeli, “Technique of Verse”
2) Literary Encyclopedia (FEB)
3) pishi site
4) Yuri Nesterenko, “On exact and imprecise rhymes”
5) Kvyatkovsky Poetic Dictionary (FEB)
6) Tim Skorenko, “Textbook of Versification”

Reviews

Good evening. I read both the first and second articles with great pleasure. I learned a lot for myself. I teach versification techniques at the Rostock youth studio.
But I have always been convinced and continue to convince young people: first - content and depth
thoughts, rich lexicon. If this is not the case, then no rhyme, even the most polished one, will help. The reader is primarily interested in depth and content, while technology is of interest only to “technicians,” as a rule. I love it very much
M. Tsvetaeva - this is where the treasure trove of improvisations, rhyming and freedom lies. At the same time, the conciseness and capacity of the poetic line and... the uniqueness of her creativity. Thanks again.
Anna Dan Demyanenko.

Rhyme- repetition of sounds connecting the endings of two or more lines or symmetrically located parts of poetic lines. In Russian classical versification, the main feature of rhyme is the coincidence of stressed vowels. Rhyme marks the end of a verse with a sound repetition ( clauses), emphasizing the interlinear pause, and thereby the rhythm of the verse.

Depending on the location of stress in rhyming words, rhyme occurs:

Men's- rhyme with stress on the last syllable in the line.

Both the sea and the storm rocked our h eln;

I, sleepy, was betrayed by every whim in oln.

There were two infinities in Not,

And I was willfully played about Not.

Women's- with stress on the penultimate syllable in the line.

Quiet night, late this time,

Like the stars in the sky eat,

How under the gloomy St. this time

Dormant fields eat.

Dactylic- with stress on the third syllable from the end of the line.

Girl in a field with a pipe willow,

what did you do to hurt the twig? existing?

She cries at her morning lips oriole,

crying more and more bitterly and everyone is distraught more.

Hyperdactylic - with stress on the fourth and subsequent syllables from the end of the line.

Goblin's beard eats,

Stick gloomy obt eats.

Rhyme accurate and inaccurate

Why was Dunno wrong when he claimed that “stick - herring” is also a rhyme? Because he did not know that in fact it is not sounds that rhyme, but phonemes (a sound is a particular realization of a phoneme) (R. Yakobson), which have a number of distinctive features. And the coincidence of some of these features is enough to make rhyming sound possible. The fewer coinciding features of a phoneme, the more distant, the “worse” the consonance.

Consonant phonemes differ:

1) by place of education

2) by method of education

4) by hardness and softness

5) by deafness and voicedness

These signs are obviously unequal. Thus, the phoneme P coincides with the phoneme B in all respects, except for deafness - voicedness (P-voiceless, B-voiced). This difference creates an “almost” exact rhyme: trenches-peculiarities. Phonemes P and T differ in the place of formation (labial and anterior lingual). OkoPe-osoTe - is also perceived as a rhyming sound, although more distant.

The first three features create differences between phonemes that are more significant than the last two. We can designate the difference between phonemes according to the first three characteristics as two conventional units (cu); for the last two - as one. Phonemes that differ by 1-2 units are consonant. Differences of 3 or more units do not retain consonance to our ears. For example: P and G differ by three units. (place of formation - 2, voiceless-voiced - 1). And trenches - legs can hardly be considered a rhyme in our time. Even fewer are trenches - roses, where P and Z differ by 4 units (place of formation, method of formation).

So, let's mark the rows of consonant consonants. These are, first of all, pairs of hard and soft: T - T", K - K", S - S", etc.; but such substitutions are resorted to quite rarely, for example, of the three pairs of rhymes "otkoS"e-rosy" , "slopes-dews" and "slopes-roses" the second and third options are more preferable.

Substitution of voiceless-voiced voices is perhaps the most common: P-B, T-D, K-G, S-Z, Sh-Zh, F-V (in God-deep, bends-Bah-Lipakh, dragonflies-braids, people-nalita ).

The stops (mode of formation) P-T-K (voiceless) and B-D-G (voiced) respond well to each other. The corresponding two rows of fricatives are F-S-SH-H (voiceless) and V-Z-ZH (voiced). X has no voiced counterpart, but goes well and often with K. B-V and B-M are equivalent. M-N-L-R in various combinations are very productive. Soft versions of the latter are often combined with J and B (Russian[rossiJi]-blue-strong-beautiful).

So, concluding our conversation about exact and imprecise rhyme, we repeat that exact rhyme is when the vowels and consonants included in the consonant endings of the verses basically coincide. The accuracy of the rhyme is also increased by the consonance of the consonant sounds immediately preceding the last stressed vowel in rhyming verses.

(materials from the book by Samoilov D.S. The Book of Russian Rhyme, 1982 were used)

Rhyme is an important sound, compositional and semantic element of verse. As V. Mayakovsky wrote, “rhyme returns us to the previous line, makes us remember it, makes all the lines that form one thought stick together.

The vast majority of poems are written using consonances at the end of lines - rhymes. Refusal of them is acceptable, but in this case the author must work flawlessly with syllables and letters, otherwise the poetic work cannot be classified as poetry. Using rhymes requires special skill. It should not be reduced to a simple selection of words that have consonant endings; at least the entire previous line should prepare the reader for the appearance of one or another rhyme. At the same time, the consonance must be stable and it must be achieved in an original way.

A rhyme, the appearance of which is easy to predict, does not make an impression on the reader, and the entire verse suffers from this. Simple or common rhymes can be used by the author, but in this case the phonetics of the poem must be worked out, giving them an additional flavor.

Some of the most powerful consonances are rhymes formed in endings different parts speech. However, finding a stable consonance in this case can be difficult. If this fails, a weak consonance at the end of a line can be strengthened by the corresponding phoneme located at the beginning of the next line. Similar techniques are also used if the rhyming word contains a sound that violates the phonetic pattern of the verse. In this case, a phoneme is used in the previous or subsequent word that can soften this effect.

Selecting stable and at the same time not trivial consonances is a very labor-intensive task. It is almost impossible to compile a manual for its implementation, and the real skill of composing rhymes comes to the author only with experience.

In the process of development of versification there were many types of rhymes: initial, middle, end. But over time, most types of rhymes became a thing of the past, and only end rhyme remained in European poetry.

Rhyme is a changeable phenomenon. In the 18th and 19th centuries, poetry was dominated by exact rhyme (the coincidence of the sounds of rhyming words, starting from the stressed vowel and ending) “full - bottom”, “ruled - forced”, “chained - enchanted”. Gradually, poets began to deviate from generally accepted laws and deviations from exact rhyme appeared. Rhymes with stressed Y - I ("was - outraged") appeared, truncation of the final "Y" in feminine and dactylic rhymes ("Tani - dreams", "fresh - someone else's"). There were other deviations from the exact rhyme.

Already in the middle of the 18th century, new types of rhyme appeared: heterogeneous (formed by different parts of speech: “night - away”, “full - bottom”) and composite (“virgins - where are you”, etc.), which quickly became fashionable and became widespread. These types of rhymes still play an important role in versification.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the arsenal of poets included such types of rhyme as
- grammatical (“couldn’t - fell ill”, “lady - Bentham”);

Approximate (with the same consonants, the overstressed vowels differ (“birch - tears”, “with soul - zealous”);

Root (in this rhyme the indifferent post-stressed part rhymes with a similar pre-stressed part).

Speaking about rhyme, I would like to talk about how the poem is constructed, what semantic and compositional role the rhyme and the final words of each line play in versification.

Poetry is a constant search for a compromise between form and content, and in this search the poet must remember - if a word asks for a stanza, it must be there

Rhyme can be accurate or inaccurate. In an exact rhyme, the stressed syllable and all the sounds that come after it coincide. It's the sounds, not the letters. So, for example: “like - beautiful” is a perfectly accurate rhyme: tsia is read as tsa. The stressed consonant in both words is a, followed by the sounds vitsa in both words.

Let's say you need to come up with an exact rhyme for the word "queen". The stressed vowel is e, followed by the sounds wa. This means that all words that will rhyme with “queen” must end in -eva or -evo (because unstressed o is read as a). We look in the rhyming dictionary: maiden - anger - left, Eve, tree, sowing... - all this can be fearlessly rhymed with “queen”.

Among exact rhymes, “rich” rhymes are especially valued. A “rich” rhyme is one in which one sound (or more) coincides before the stressed vowel. For example: Bear - roar - rich rhyme: in addition to the common sounds t (after the stressed vowel ed at the end of the word it is read as t), they have another common sound in front of it. Therefore, it seems to the ear that a bear - roar, rhymes better than a bear - whip (this is also an exact rhyme, but not rich.

And also about the exact rhyme. Exactly rhyming words must have at least two sounds in common. Let's say the moon - a candle - is an imprecise rhyme (and, most likely, not a rhyme at all). Although they have the same stressed vowel a at the end of the word. Here the moon - the wall - rhymes beautifully.

These are exact rhymes. They fit well into the line and will never make the verse worse than any approximate rhyme. Pushkin, for example, has practically no inaccurate rhymes, while Mayakovsky has almost all inaccurate rhymes.

With imprecise rhymes the situation is somewhat different, and one must have a lot of experience and a developed sense of caution when using them. Only intuition and experience will tell you when and how to use them, which imprecise rhymes are good and which are not so good. Examples of imprecise rhymes can be the following: fur coat - noise, boasts - backs away.

Rhyme is the queen of poetry, and there must be very good reasons for abandoning it. Moreover, abandoning rhyme is permissible only in the case of the finest, close to ideal elaboration of the phonetic component of the poem. If this is not the case, then the author is either lazy or mediocre. We can talk endlessly about rhymes. In this article I want to dwell on a few more points. First of all, you need to remember that there is no shame in using simple rhymes, but, again, we must not forget about working on their sound. Over time, there comes a moment in the life of every good poet, after which he is no longer able to use a weak or hackneyed rhyme in his work; such rhymes are simply blocked by the brain.

If you still rely on rhyme, you need to look for the least expected one; it is precisely such rhymes that are especially strong. Obvious rhymes should be avoided. We must remember that only banal, repeatedly used rhymes fit perfectly into a poem. The original rhyme is prepared by the entire previous line.

- (from the Greek rhythmos proportionality) the consonance of the ends of verses (or hemistiches), marking their boundaries and connecting them with each other. Category: structure poetic work Whole: sound organization of the verse Type: poor rhyme, rich rhyme ...

Rhyme- When writing this article, material was used from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1890-1907). Wiktionary has an entry for "rhyme"... Wikipedia

RHYME- (from the Greek rhythmós smoothness, proportionality), the consonance of the ends of verses (or hemistiches), marking their boundaries and connecting them together. It developed from the natural consonances of syntactic parallelism; originated in European literature...

rhyme- (from the Greek rhythmos proportionality) the same or similar sound of the ends of two or more poetic lines, marking their boundaries and connecting them with each other (for example, in an excerpt from the poem by V.V. Mayakovsky: Poetry // the same mining of radium.… … Dictionary of literary terms

dissonance- A; m. [French] dissonance] 1. Music. Non-harmonic combination of sounds (opposite: consonance). Orchestral d. Catch d. in the sound of violins. 2. That which does not correspond to something violates harmony; discord, inconsistency. It sounded like dissonance... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (French dissonance, from Latin dissono I sound discordant) an imprecise rhyme with matching consonants and a mismatched stressed vowel. Rubric: structure of a poetic work Gender: * imprecise rhyme Example: There, whistling and whistling, they walk until... ... Terminological dictionary-thesaurus on literary criticism

ASSONANCE- (French assonance consonance, from Latin assono I respond), 1) repetition of vowel sounds, mainly stressed, the main element of phonics. 2) Imprecise rhyme in which the stressed vowel coincides and the consonants do not coincide, for example: ... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary

assonance- A; m. [French] assonance]. Lit. 1. Repetition of similar vowel sounds in verse. A. in a line, stanza, phrase. 2. An imprecise rhyme in which only stressed vowel sounds coincide with a mismatch or incomplete coincidence of consonants (for example: doctor ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

tolymsyz- Uykas. Adeb. Onsha dәl emes ұyқas. Bul zhagynan karaganda, ұyқasty Kazakh poetry tolymdy ұyқas (exact rhyme), tol y m sy z ұ y қ аs (inexact rhyme) dep boledi (Kaz. adeb. encycl., 655) ... Kazak tilinin tүsіndіrme сөздігі

DISSONANCE- (French dissonance from Latin dissono sound discordant), 1) in music, unfused, intense simultaneous sound of different tones. Dissonance is the opposite of consonance. Dissonance includes major and minor seconds and sevenths, increased and decreased... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

It is impossible to draw an unconditional, unshakable boundary between approximate and inaccurate rhyme. This division is based on the fact that minor deviations are usually considered as insignificant, and the corresponding consonances as equivalent, while with more noticeable differences the impression of inconsistency, deviation from the norm, and artistically calculated dissonance arises. However, as has been pointed out, the boundaries of the usual-precise for different poets in different historical eras are subject to significant fluctuations; Therefore, the division into approximate and imprecise rhymes, in a general overview, is more conveniently carried out on a purely phonetic basis. I include the latter:

1. rhymes with various consonants;

2. rhymes with various stressed vowels;

3. rhymes, different in the number of syllables;

4. rhymes with different stress placements.

1. XVIII and XIX centuries.

In the history of Russian poetry of the 18th and 19th centuries, there were several episodic attempts to decanonize exact rhyme. In the 18th century, the most interesting experiment in this direction was made by Derzhavin. Here is an example of his rhyming technique (“The Nightingale”):

In the light, fragrant winds

Now it whistles, now it rings;

Then we drown out the noise of water

With a sweet sigh he languishes...

By sparkles, crackles and frosts,

Among the late, early, red dawns,

The sky resounded across the azures

Brings the creature into silence...

What volume, liveliness, clarity

In tune with your singing,

Swiftness, pleasantness, skating

Between the knees and change...

The vast majority of inaccurate rhymes are found in Derzhavin in feminine endings (in poems of Catherine’s era - 169 cases to 37 masculine). At the same time, truncation of the trailing consonant of the last syllable occurs only twice, the type most common in modern poetry (basilisks: close, 234; descendants: Potemkin, 476). Usually, different consonants within a rhyme alternate against the same background - actions: jokes (142), thanksgiving: housewarming (688), slyness: wealth (142), etc. Most often, the supporting consonant is n; Wed silent: languid (229), airy: sonorous (486), sudden: a hundredfold (161). Often a group of consonants and n alternates with long n(nn) ; eg fragrant; watery (693), black: loose (471), golden embroidered: precious (103), cool fragrant (104), innocent: powerless (112), etc. The last two types have 51 and 42 examples; the first - only 18 cases. In 22 cases, alternating consonants do not have the same support, for example, people: letah (704), pet: porch (303), latakh: paws (251), sit down: say (472), etc. Thus, Derzhavin in most cases looks for such examples of mismatches in which at least some elements of the consonant group remain constant (139 cases out of 169). To compensate for the discrepancy, very often there are additional consonances in pre-stressed syllables, for example, in the given example - V one: good V onnym, ne R unam: lazu R pit; Wed also: its b O d noah: god d O b noah (272), cm ert: no cm ethnyh (105), che R new: oak R ovny (240), great l spear: long l etie (482) and many more. etc. In 143 cases out of 169, imprecise female rhymes belong to the category of grammatically homogeneous, so that the morphological identity of suffixes or inflection is added to the acoustic proximity of consonance; Wed strong: deserted (475), watery: bottomless (571), chirping: trembling (571), clarity: rolling (694) and many more. etc. Heterogeneous categories rhyme only in a small number of examples: glorious: crowned (358), princess: incomparable (129), immeasurable: abyss (240).

As for male rhymes, here too in 33 out of 37 cases the trailing consonant in the group is the same; Wed thunder: hill (641), around: host (658), he: waves (232), full: law (232), firm: following (176), honor: dust (349), ripen: stretch (397), write : power (536). Of these, in 16 cases we have a combination of sonorous consonants, smooth and nasal (dominated - hill, host, waves, full). Alternations of different closing elements are extremely rare, cf. corpse: tinder (657) hero: dust (642) - only 3 cases; clipping does not occur at all. Compensation occurs, as can be seen from the examples, quite often. Morphological parallelism is not required.

The question of the origin of Derzhavin’s imprecise rhyme remains open. It should be borne in mind that the canonization of strict rhyme, after a long period of free technique, already refers to the beginning of a new syllabic-tonic versification: in any case, there are individual, albeit rare, examples of inaccuracies in consonantism in Lomonosov and even Sumarokov, somewhat more often in Kantemir and Tredyakovsky’s first experiments indicate that the tradition of exact rhyme in the middle of the 18th century was not yet fully strengthened, and Derzhavin could take advantage of the opportunities that arose from this. On the other hand, the parallelism of grammatical forms does not exclude the possibility of folk influence (cf. especially “Swallow”). Most likely, however, we are encountering here the individual manner of a great poet, also unique in his rhyming techniques.

In any case, the first experience of decanonization of exact rhyme remained an episode in the history of Russian poetry. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, Derzhavin was imitated. In Karamzin's poems there are about 25 cases of imprecise rhyme, of which 21 cases represent the type that predominates in Derzhavin - female rhyme, with a constant supporting consonant of the internal group and parallelism of grammatical forms; Wed must: can (5, etc.), baby: hearts (10), favor: liberty (96), etc. In masculine rhymes, in all three cases, the internal consonant of the closing group drops out - die: death (96), no: solid (190), etc. In Batyushkov, out of 27 cases, the share of female rhymes accounts for 24, of which in 14 cases the supporting consonant is the same, cf. languid: similar (41), favorable: huge (64), ancient: vespers (80); in 10 examples we have the alternation - precious: confident (1), favorite: porch (199), etc.; in 19 cases the rhymes are parallel; three male rhymes belong to the usual type - thunder: host (20) : house (102), sing: death (252). Derzhavin's type of imprecise rhyme can be traced in Pushkin's lyceum poems, which in general are distinguished by all sorts of deviations from strict rhyme (about 15 cases); for example, wealth: states (6), half-day: dark (18), sloth: favorite (15), Aristarchus: verses (11), volumes (19), etc.; in the same way, in Delvig’s early poems - hearts: baby (151), condensed: body (163), etc.; in Tyutchev’s first experiments - golden-flowered: mortals (5), as well as seraphim: inevitable (8), etc. Young Zhukovsky, extremely inaccurate in his rhymes (until the end of 1803 - about 25 cases), deviates from Derzhavin’s manner. Thus, in the draft edition of “Rural Cemetery” (1, 13-15) next to the usual - poor: deprived, waves: Milton, we find - sad: covered, grave: unflattering, grave: sad, dedicated: reverent, wonderful: heavenly, heard: breathing, valley: sad; after 1803, the number of examples decreases sharply (1804-1817 - 17 cases), cf., however, “The Bard’s Song” (1806) - host: all around (42): thunder (42, 45); „Dv. sp. dev“ - host: all around (74), joy: goodness (79). The manner of the young Lermontov is quite peculiar, in whom we find in “Circassians”, in addition to the more usual assonances (black: stabbed 8, high: loud 7, wanders: looking 10) several cases of consonance - mound: Don (4), all around: trees (4 ), military: glorious (5), swirls: rushes (10), exactly the same in “Kavk. “Pl.” - careful: gentle (24), young: head (40), etc. These unusual combinations undoubtedly reflect childhood inexperience, but they are interesting as possibilities rejected by high-style poetry.

Throughout the 19th century, most poets occasionally encountered imprecise rhymes, as permissible, although not recognized, liberties. Wed. eg in Tyutchev - everyday: magical: sincere (188), in Lermontov - smoky: decorous (II, 194), in Fet - prayer: sincere (147), embrace: cools down (364), millennium: branch (407), in Polonsky - space: kingdom (39), muddy: inaccessible (69), poor: prayer services (110), invisible: silk (129), etc., in Vl. Solovyov - will advance: will rise (94), etc. It should be noted that in some poets, next to rhyme-parallelism, combinations of grammatically heterogeneous ones, especially with a truncated final consonant, for example, in A. Grigoriev - trampled: promised (63 ), evening: candles (97) : speeches (97), stream: deep (125), marvelous: revocable (126), in Polonsky - deep: streams (80), in Vl. Solovyov - offensive: shameful (172), repeatedly - in Pleshcheev - gloomy: think (75), halls: drained (76), weeping: clouds (91), rich: chambers (96), mighty: clouds (104), etc. The combination - silent: waves (: full) often returns, which has been preserved from Derzhavin’s time, as a kind of rudiment of a freer rhyming system (cf. what was said above about rhyme - life: fatherland): having no other pair in the Russian language, the word silent has been preserved in a motionless, as if petrified combination, which can be considered conventionally precise for poets of the 19th century; A. Tolstoy, as can be seen from his letter, does not notice the difference in consonants (see above, p. 163). At the beginning of the 19th century, other solitary words were rhymed this way, for example, host: thunder, anthem: by one, etc.

The use of imprecise rhyme by poets from the people - Koltsov and Nikitin - also remains an isolated episode in the middle of the 19th century. In a few rhymed poems, dating primarily to the initial period of his work, Koltsov rhymes, for example. extensive: inviting (7), modest: feigned (19), scary: dangerous (21), coffin-like: vaulted (33), cold: secluded (36), etc.; only about 25 cases, of which 23 are inaccurate feminine rhymes with deviations in the internal group of consonants. Wed. track. sample (Elegy, p. 35):

Into your arms, a cold coffin,

I’m flying to a dear friend;

In your secluded abode

I want to hide from people.

And who with a smile that pleases me

Did you gently shake your hand from the heart?

With me who is the joy desired

Shared joy and sadness?..

Nikitin is a student of Koltsov, on the one hand; on the other hand, like the teacher himself, he is influenced by folk songs. But in contrast to Koltsov, Nikitin writes most of his works in rhymed verse; therefore, a technique that is ultimately uncharacteristic for Koltsov becomes dominant for Nikitin. For example, Nikitin’s “Song” was written in the spirit of a folk song, with characteristic parallelism of grammatical forms in rhyming words (64):

Made noise, walked around

There is bad weather in the field;

Covered with white snow

Smooth road.

Covered with white snow -

There's no trace left

Dust and blizzard rose -

Out of sight...

The influence of folk song is even more pronounced with dactylic rhyme. Eg:

Are you dry, our mother?

Helper of bitter poverty,

Constant nurse,

Eternal worker... (288)

You have spring without greenery,

And your love is without joy,

Your joy is timeless.

Sickness with hunger in old age.

You've been tormented and tormented forever,

There is great sadness in my heart;

You will part with the white light, -

There is wild grass on the grave! (290)

Here, in the field of folk dactylic rhyme, Nikitin even decides - though in only one case - to combine consonant endings with different stressed root vowels (incomplete suffixal rhyme):

The water has walked

Through green meadows -

I listened to the storm enough;

Broke bridges

Flooded the yards, -

I enjoyed my free life.

Spring has passed

The river has calmed down, -

It flows through the sand and does not become muddy;

On the night of the month he sleeps,

The wind blows - it is silent.

He just frowns and winces... (200)

However, if the influence of folk song technique on Nikitin is undoubted, then it should at the same time be recognized that he extends the technique of imprecise rhyme far beyond the boundaries of the song itself. In poems of a high, “literary” style, in accusatory iambics and philosophical thoughts, the same rhymes are repeatedly found. Eg:

The harsh cold of strict life

I bear it calmly

And the sky has a new road

I don’t ask for prayer during hours... (38)

Like an unmarked grave

Long forgotten tenant

Lying in the silent desert

The ruins of the old palace... (40)

Most of Nikitin's inaccurate rhymes are in feminine endings: in lyric poems - 81 cases, of which 69 cases are grammatically homogeneous rhymes. All examples, like Derzhavin’s, refer to alternations of the internal group of consonants, however, the preservation of the same supporting consonant in an overstressed syllable is not to the same extent necessary (46 cases). Thus, next to the type - sorry: hot (219), daring: sharp (14), stronger: lighter (172), deadline: new thing (127), remember: bury (172), autumn: villages (265), saint : admirer (305), etc. we also have - house: deceased (13), breadwinner: gift (216), city: cold (195) and many more. etc.

In dactylic rhymes (22 cases), parallelism of grammatical categories is always observed; with the same disyllabic ending, inaccuracies in consonatism are limited to the group of consonants following the stressed vowel, for example. angry: defenseless (189), asking: to return (190), cooking: crying (363). Inaccuracies in men's rhymes occur only 4 times; Wed dream: waves (23), labor: hill (41), etc. It is curious that the truncation of the final consonant, so common in modern poetry, is not found even once in Nikitin. It contradicts the dominant type of rhyme-parallelism.

2. Symbolists.

Regardless of previous attempts, the process of decanonization of exact rhyme is resumed in the lyrics of Russian Symbolists. The initiative here, as in almost all metrical innovations of our time, belongs to Valery Bryusov, who in his experiments probably followed the example of the French Symbolists. However, Russian polyphonic and polysyllabic rhyme presents much more possibilities in this regard than the acoustically monosyllabic French rhyme, and already in the first example (1893) Bryusov uses imprecise dactylic rhymes (“Despondency”):

Heart full of despondency

Seduce with a ray of love.

All limits and all lines

Cut it off mercilessly.

Let in the uncertain darkness

Ghosts are crying all around.

Let me go, lost on the way,

Through a dark, scary meadow.

And then betrayed by deceptions,

Happy with my dreams,

I will sing my unknown hymn,

The rocks move like Orpheus.

In the poems of 1896-97 the number of examples multiplies. In combination with dactylic ones, inaccurate masculine rhymes appear:

The moon is pale like a cloud,

Still, strange forest,

There's a spire far away - and about

Golden, shiny cross.

The train winds fast, slow,

The forest has disappeared and there is no cross, -

But in the azure is the secret of the month

Unchanging and pure.

Inaccuracies also appear in women's rhymes. Wed. above page 69 “I remember the evening”... (1897) or:

Tired, sleepy evening

Calmed the waves with silence,

And the distant glacier faded,

Forever proud and silent.

The dark sea is stretched out,

Waits in languid constancy,

Will the month be dead soon?

To kiss his space... (1896, p. 187).

Throughout Bryusov’s subsequent work, inaccurate rhymes, with the usual deviations in consonants, are encountered more often than not. What is new is Bryusov’s widespread use of this technique in rhymes that are grammatically heterogeneous, which generally corresponds to the manner of his rhyming (cf. the examples given above). Therefore, rhymes with the final consonant cut off begin to appear in large numbers, for example. arrived: could (II, 27), native: howling (27), gray: burned, sparks: fast (II, 66), cities: cold (72), evening: lighter (81), etc. It should be noted that imprecise rhyme is felt by Bryusov as a special system of versification, which almost does not mix with the usual system: for example, there is a whole series of poems written in imprecise rhymes (“miserable rhymes,” in the poet’s own words, I, 141), and another group, the most numerous , in which there are no inaccuracies at all. An example of an entire cycle built on a new rhyme system - with deviations in the area of ​​consonants - is the group of poems “On the Granites” in the collection “All Tunes” (1906, No. 2 , 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10):

Another long quiet evening.

Again the sea, again the rocks,

The sun is throwing sparks again

Above the wave of luxurious scarlet.

And not knowing if I'm here or not,

What I breathe - dreams or grief -

The West is extinguishing, luxuriantly bright,

Over the insanely bright sea.

Inaudible to them - dispassionate to them -

A whisper of passion, a murmur of anger.

The sky wants to be beautiful

The sea wants to be like the sky.

The waves quickly lower the rings,

Rings of a red sunset.

Heart! heart! calm down:

Everything is forever, everything is without return.

In addition to the usual inaccuracies in consonants, Bryusov also used unequal rhymes for the first time. The new method of rhyming in this case does not mix with the others: unequal rhymes are found only in a small number of poems. where they are included in the metric task and are ordered compositionally. Bryusov began with an experiment on such a combination of sounds in which the loss of a weakened overstressed vowel is almost inaudible, thanks to the related articulation of the preceding sounds (-l" e y - l’ eь;-р’ And: - R" And yi). The additional syllable appears at the end of the stanza, as a kind of metrical cadence:

The pale sounds trembled

The poplar foliage trembled,

And like a quiet dream of sadness

You walked along the treasured alley.

You walked along the alley and disappeared.

I waited for the desired dawn,

And the foggy sadness lit up

Mary's silver rhyme.

In the poems from the collection “Tertia Vigilia” the new technique is used quite freely, without any attempt to obscure the discrepancy between the consonances. Wed. “Aganatis” (1897-98) - a combination of hyperdactylic rhyme with dactylic:

Heavenly virgin

Goddess Astarte,

In the triumph of innocence you stand before me.

Long staircase

Illuminated brightly

And behind the door in the temple there is a vague twilight of night.

I know, divine, -

You are the reflection of Asherah,

Goddesses of lust and passionate nights.

Now you are a virgin!

Having enjoyed beyond measure,

You shine in a crown of immaculate rays...

(Page III, 1 - 4 conventions: sinfulness, p. IV, 1:4 virgin: ladder). Even more complex is the compositional distribution of unequally syllabic rhymes in the introduction to the poem “To the King of the North Pole” (1898 -1900) - a"", v", a", v"":

There were many songs composed

About your country without a trace.

What is possible, what is impossible,

Everything was a dream...

In the next stanza, dactylic and feminine rhymes change places: inaccessible - brave - criminal - wet. The last stanza returns to the original arrangement: unknowns - fairy tales - closely - caresses.

Valery Bryusov's metrical experiments marked the beginning of a new period in the history of Russian rhyme. But the canonization of imprecise rhyme in Russian lyric poetry of the 20th century is primarily the work of A. Blok. In Blok's lyrics, imprecise rhyme ceases to belong to a special system of versification: it extends to all poems, as equal to ordinary rhyme and in this sense, as if it were a normal technique.

Blok occasionally encounters inaccurate rhyme already in the poems of volume I (Ante lucern, “Poems about a beautiful lady”), however, before 1902 - only in isolated examples. All cases (except two) refer to feminine rhymes with a truncated trailing consonant (mostly - m) e.g. light: dawn (I, 19, 1899), light: answer (I, 27, 1900), godlessly: false (I, 44, 1900), in vain: beautiful (I, 33, 1900), etc. - total 12 cases before 1902. Since 1902, along with the change in emotional mood, poetic themes and style, noted by all biographers and critics (the “Crossroads” section in “Poems about a Beautiful Lady”), an increasingly wider and more diverse use of imprecise rhyme begins, probably not without the influence of the poetics of Bryusov and the Symbolists, with which Blok became acquainted during these years. In some poems, imprecise rhymes are especially abundant - usually in these cases there is also a sharp deviation from the syllabic-tonic system of versification, not in the direction of melodious romantic beaters (type: “I enter dark temples...”), but in the direction of intermittent ones, like would be conversational rhythms. Wed. in particular “The Queen was watching the screensavers...” (in folk style) (I, 176, 14. XII. 02), “Dark pale green children's room...” (I, 207, 23. XI. 03), “From the newspapers” (212, 27. XII. 03), as well as “A black man was running around the city...” (192, Apr. 03), “You were wearing a black closed dress...” (I, 193, 15. V. 03), “Her porch is like a porch...” (7. XI. 03; I, 206). Eg:

The queen watched the screensavers,

Letters made of red gold.

I lit red lamps,

I prayed to the Meek Mother of God...

Hours passed. A man came

With a tin plaque on a warm cap.

A man was knocking and waiting at the door.

Nobody opened it. They played hide and seek.

There were cheerful frosty Christmastide...

The collections “Unexpected Joy” (1906) and “Earth in the Snow” (1908), subsequently combined in Volume II of “Collected Poems,” are of decisive importance in this process. Volume II contains 114 cases of imprecise rhyme. Some sections are particularly rich in examples, such as “Bubbles of the Earth” (1905) and especially “Snow Mask” (1907). Wed:

Secretly the heart asks for death.

Light heart, glide...

So they took me out of life

Snowy silver paths...

Like over that distant ice hole

Quiet steam flows from water,

So with your own quiet step

You brought me here... (201)

As an organic phenomenon of style, dissonances in rhyme are in many cases combined here with the emancipation of verse from the laws of syllabic-tonic versification. Even more often they are found together with the destruction of the canonical, symmetrical structure of the stanza, the more or less widespread use of free strophic composition of rhythmic series of different sizes, and with the use of catachresis as the dominant technique of irrational verbal style (“Snow Masks”, “Faina”). Wed:

Quietly led out of the rooms,

She closed the door.

Quiet. Sweet. He won't remember

He won't remember what happened now.

The blizzard will bury the memory,

Will close the door forever.

Looked sweetly into your eyes

With a gaze like an arrow.

Listen, the wind drives the stars,

Listen, cloudy horses

Trample the stellar boundaries

And they're chomping at the bit...

The majority of inaccurate rhymes of type II, as before, relate to feminine rhymes with deviations in consonants - 66 cases. (the rest are 48). Of these, more than half (34) are with a cut-off trailing consonant: a type that is now becoming increasingly widespread; Wed rises: fog (48), listen: soul (200), whispers: stronger (67), loudly: child (24), starry: abyss (178), depths: loved (107), crossroads: twigs (96), cold : lace (77), etc. Of the rhymes containing deviations in the internal group of consonants, 19 belong to homogeneous grammatical categories, for example. hug: knock over (87), forget: love (177), reciprocal: mortal (132), tighter: lighter (111), bunny: boy (191), wind: evening (repeatedly, see 78, 167, 212, 214 , 217), etc. In 13 cases - morphologically heterogeneous, for example. dome: listened (76), fast: sparks (199, 218), bright: ashes (203), etc. Together with examples of truncated rhymes, these cases indicate that the principle of morphological parallelism, which prevailed in Derzhavin and Nikitin, in modern poetry is optional. There is still quite a large number of inaccurate male rhymes, only 6 cases - door: shadow (84), whirlwind: sparks (227), tornado: death (187), tornado: cross (187), down: faces (136), mast: trumpeter (187); of these - not a single case with a truncated trailing consonant; usually - with the preservation of identical elements in the closing group or with partial compensation in the pre-stressed part of the word. Among the dactylic ones (21 in total), the majority belong to a morphologically homogeneous type and contain, in addition to the same stressed vowel, the same two-syllable ending with deviations in the unstressed consonants behind the stressed vowel (type - vowel + x + bisyllabic ending: vowel. +у+ two-word ending): - prays: bows (18), Trinity: outskirts (22), threw up: showered (229), ice hole: tread (201). Reminiscent of the rhymes of a folk song, these consonances are actually found in poems written in the style of folk poetry (for example, “Harmonica” and “Willows”). Wed. 88:

Boys and girls

Candles and willows

They took it home.

The lights are warm,

Passers-by cross themselves

And it smells like spring...

Next to the usual type of imprecise rhyme with deviations in consonants, Blok for the first time appears a rarer type in which a stressed vowel is affected (the so-called consonance) - (184):

And they opened it again sun

This door.

And again they draw from hearts

This shadow.

And again, being careful,

Sign give,

To slowly melt

In the cell ice...

Male rhymes of the type - give: ice are no longer found in Blok, but the rhyme - sun: hearts returns repeatedly (184, 185, 190, 194, 213), united not only by consonant consonance and morphological similarity, but also by parallelism of meaning, emotional association ( compare a similar pair in the evening: wind). Wed. 80:

Here he is - Christ - in chains and roses -

Behind the bars of my prison.

Here is a meek lamb in white robe

I came to look out the prison window...

With incomplete suffixal rhymes in poems like folk songs, rhymes with different vowels are also possible. So already in Volume I Wed. room: child (I, 207). Or in particular (II, 229):

Harmonic, harmonic!

Hey, sing, squeal and burn!

Hey little yellow ones buttercups,

Spring flowers!

There with a whistle, yes with whistling

They walk until dawn

The bushes are quiet rustling

They nod to me: look!..

In such poems, rhyme returns, as it were, to its original meaning - parallelism, and the element of consonance recedes into the background compared to semantic, syntactic and morphological correspondences. Wed. eg like an embryonic rhyme:

You are the wind drunk,

Hair fluttering!

You are the wind free

Inflate the sails!..

And some for cape

And some over by sea

Blok also has few examples of unequally syllabic rhyme, with the cutting off or loss of a vowel (or an entire syllable). In comparison with Bryusov, it is significant to note that for Blok, unequally syllabic rhymes no longer form a special rhyme system, that they are mixed with other rhymes, accurate and inaccurate, as an equal device. Due to this, there are cases of violation of the usual regular alternation of endings different types. Eg 174:

And the snow spray trails behind you,

We're flying into millions abyss...

You look with the same captive soul

Into the dome star...

Dark lights flashed in the sky eyes

So clear!

And I forgot the signs

Beautiful country -

In your brilliance, comet!

In your splendor, snowy silver night!

So come up in the frosty frost,

Exorbitant light - dawn!

Lift above the distance blue

Rod of the faded king!

Wed, as examples of cutting off a vowel, - borders: queen (II, 16), swimsuits: silent ones (16), open: blurred (23), unknown: next (I, 116); loss of syllable - ray: martyr (I, 208), wet: important: wells (II, 16), snowy: hopeless (II, 175), breaking: falling (II, 182).

Unequally stressed rhymes are even less numerous, cf. kidneys: vents (II, 121), gateways: werewolf (II, 138). The main area of ​​unequally stressed rhymes in modern poetry, as has been said, is compound rhymes.

After the destructive innovations of 1903-1907, Volume III of Blok marks a return to canonical forms, both in the field of metrics and in rhyme. However, in Volume III, imprecise rhymes occur repeatedly (53 cases), like a conquest that has finally entered the poetic technical school. Undoubtedly, inaccurate female rhymes dominate (44 cases): most of them (32 words) are on a cut off consonant (most often m And T)- now an established type. Wed. believes: doors (62), whispers: stronger (66), trades: deaf (107), fog: will rise (96), tasted: victory (193), dawn: noticed (8), doors: believe (202), strings : young (26), cold: horror (31), sea: Theodoric (120, 121) and many more. etc. Less common is the alternation of the closing consonant, for example: wind: loops (326, 27), let's ask: autumn (185), or alternations within a word - ashes: light (99), rest: air (215), quickly: sparks ( 206) etc. Male rhymes are found, as an exception (3) - thunders: screw (234), celebration: orchestra (229), shoulder: about nothing (196 - with truncated consonant) In the poem “On the Kulikovo Field” (4) there is a consonance - news: passions (III, 295). One of the following is built on unequally stressed rhymes in regular alternation. Italian poems(Florence, 4): stones: flames, sorrows: Italy (p. 129). Two dactylic rhymes are found in poems of the song type - oblivion: memory (212), upper room: mistress (223).

After Blok, wide freedom was established in the use of imprecise rhymes, which even received a special name - rhymes. Different poets use this freedom to varying degrees, but in general it can be noted that disyllabic rhymes with inconsistency in consonants, especially with truncation of the trailing consonant, are common (for example, in Kuzmin, Gumilyov, Akhmatova). The wide distribution of the latter category is probably explained by acoustic conditions: a significant weakening of the trailing consonant in an overstressed syllable, especially the stop (t, m), the pronunciation of which is, in all likelihood, limited to a stop without a plosive. Anna Akhmatova widely uses such rhymes (especially in “The Rosary”), adding to them in a small number of examples (4) a new category of masculine rhymes with a truncated trailing consonant. Wed, 7:

It was stuffy from the burning light,

And his glances are like rays.

I just shuddered: this

Maybe you can tame me...

I have one smile:

So, the movement of the lips is slightly visible.

I saved it for you -

After all, she was given to me by love.

With a total number of 43 inaccurate. rhymes, the majority - 25 - belong to the usual type, for example: who: will help (I. 21), mice: embroidered (A. D. 85), flame: memory (B. Art. 16), less often: gentle (A. D. 94) , compressed: sunset (Part 90), hemlines: cheerful (A. D. 75), etc. In 9 cases, closing consonants alternate, usually (7) with sweat (th). Eg. meeting: evening (B. Art. 39), drowsiness: water cannons (56), fresh: undead (A. D. 65), groans: banners (A. D. 93), etc. Male rhymes with a truncated consonant are as follows: - rays: tame (Ch. 7), lips: shore (26), ours: given (19), to you: blue (B. Art. 96). The peculiarity of Akhmatova’s imprecise rhymes is based not on this small and rarely encountered acoustic innovation, but on a change in the stylistic character of imprecise rhyme in connection with the general properties of Akhmatova’s poetic style. Sound discrepancies here give the impression of carelessness of intimate conversational speech rather than musical dissonance, as in Blok’s romantically melodious lyrics.

3. Mayakovsky.

Mayakovsky's rhyming technique in all its basic elements is already outlined in A. Blok's imprecise rhymes. The novelty of Mayakovsky's art does not lie in the creation of new categories of imprecise rhyme: after all, the number of such possibilities is theoretically limited. Mayakovsky only strengthens the element of dissonance in directions outlined to a weaker extent by previous poets, and surpasses them in the systematic, repeated use of already established categories. Thus, in the poem “War and Peace,” which can serve as an example of his established manner, for 81 pairs of exact and approximate rhymes we find 165 pairs of inaccurate ones.

Mayakovsky's imprecise rhyme is associated primarily with the widest use of approximate rhyme: in this respect, Mayakovsky is aligned with A. Tolstoy, Bryusov and Blok. Overstressed vowels are not taken into account by him: front vowels are combined with back vowels, despite the difference in the hardness or softness of the preceding consonant, for example. - whirlpool: twist (151), cunning: shook out (149), Morse: fidgeted (142), etc. Of course, long consonants are freely combined with short ones (valleys: long, 137, rest: water pipes, 141, etc.), voiceless with voiced ones (for example, clangs: dancing, 132).

Clipping th possible in all morphological categories, after all vowels, including in a stressed syllable in masculine rhyme; Wed blisters: in the hole (131), wheel: coliseum (136). Iot loss is also common, cf. Pilate: dress (142), to the family: by all (154), etc. These inconsistencies, which have already become canonical, must be kept in mind when taking into account further deviations; they are common in both exact and imprecise rhymes.

Of the deviations in consonants, cutting off the trailing consonant is still more common than other techniques. Wed. in female rhyme - immediately: mind (158), hurricane: mounds (153), closer: licks (153), eye: sideways (152), touch: grove (151), meadows: coal (140), anger: net ( 130), bosom: Babylon (130), 33 examples in total; At the same time, attention is drawn to a large number of examples in which the cut off consonant is a root one. In dactylic rhyme, there are 3 cases of truncation - broke out: with railings (136), etc. What is new is the widespread truncation of the trailing consonant in masculine rhyme - 29 approx. Wed. two: door (159), there: Christ (159), day: nannies (158), grass: tearing (158), fleece: legs (158), head: man (144), oval: Jehovah (143), sat down : all (140), step: soul (140) and many more. etc. Of the remaining examples of deviations in consonants (m. - 5, g. - 6, d. - 3), almost all also refer to inaccuracies in the closing group, for example. referee: orbit (138), brave: truth (126), cooled down: Tolstykh (134), dirty: tiptoe (133), etc.

Mayakovsky's type of unequal rhyme, outlined by Blok, became widespread (23 cases). Due to the absence of the usual alternation of endings of different types in his poems, it is easier to combine the masculine ending with the feminine, and the feminine with dactylic. There are rhymes with truncation of the final syllable, cf. humpbacked: Carpathians (152), chameleon: intoxicated (151), prostrate: executed (149), and also - two syllables, cf. hats: plowing (144); only 5 examples. More often you come across unequally syllabic rhymes with the loss of a vowel or an entire syllable within a word (18 cases), for example. searched for: scalp (153), mow: bones (153), Kovno: shredded (144), brazenly: naked (134), volumes: descendants (130), etc. Loss may be accompanied by truncation th or final consonant, e.g. ripped open: aorta (146), in pairs: armies (137), theater: gladiators (136), evicted: thoughts (133), etc. (7 cases).

Deviations in stressed vowels (consonance) occur only three times, cf. year: ritual (127), izorzhav: Joffre (139), mosques: mark them (139), and one more case among compound rhymes with the loss of a syllable cf. Damn it: written (143). The stressed vowel in Mayakovsky is the main bearer of the metrical law (purely tonic versification in the most consistent development): therefore, attention is focused primarily on the correspondence of the stressed vocalism. Unequally stressed rhymes with reversal of stress also do not play a significant role (4 cases); Wed grow: courage (126), rattles: nothing in the sky (138), attacked: carrion (144), it’s me: meat (148). But the widespread development of compound rhymes makes the principle of unequal ending one of the most significant in Mayakovsky’s rhyme.

Compound rhymes in the era of Symbolism, among Bryusov and his school, as already mentioned, became widespread, reaching significant inaccuracy. In Mayakovsky, about a third of all imprecise rhymes (55 examples), i.e., more than one fifth (about 2/9) of all rhymes in general, belong to compound rhymes. Among them there are, of course, old, long-canonized combinations, for example. personal pronoun-subject adjacent to the predicate verb or (more often) in a more difficult combination with the nominal form; Wed to you from the bottom, dug up by explosions, I: Danube (153), I will collect... parts I: communion (150), passing by: beloved (156), bright faces I (see): Galicia (152), etc.; among Mayakovsky’s predecessors, compound rhymes with indirect cases of the personal pronoun had already become widespread - on the yards: warm them up (153), where does love come from for us: Cain (158), there is nowhere for it to go: Venice (134), etc.

A more significant deviation is in the use of two-syllable forms of the personal pronoun, which before Mayakovsky were found only in isolated cases, cf. - by name: they are under him (153), she lifted up the mounds of bodies: done (145), she is suspended in the earth’s bald spot (144), you grow her: quatrain (145), soaked him all: mush (144), etc. Finally, Mayakovsky widely uses in compound rhyme completely independent two-syllable words with full real meaning, which do not form a closely related accent group with the previous word, contrasting such a two-stress group with the usual, mostly dactylic ending, for example. ice cheeks: pilots (137), deposits: eyes lick (154), from oak trees volok: wire (140), Magyar mustache: tiers (137), face distorted by melancholy: will crack (149), etc. In the reading of Mayakovsky and his imitators the second stress is not hidden, but sounds quite clearly (sometimes even stronger than the first). Thus, the principle of unequal distribution of dynamic weights and, in parallel with this, the uneven distribution of semantic units (two dynamic and semantic units in combination with one), obscured in the compound rhyme of the usual type, appears in Mayakovsky as a naked discrepancy.

The parallelism in the development of qualitative inconsistencies in compound and simple rhyme, noticed in other poets, is confirmed by Mayakovsky. Thus, the reduced vowel of an overstressed syllable is combined with an unreduced vowel general rules rhyming of overstressed vowels; Wed eg A : O- she cocked the bodies over the mounds A]: done [-ънъ], on the rock there [there]: with a skeleton [-тъм]. In addition to these usual inconsistencies, Mayakovsky extends other favorite types of inaccuracies to compound rhyme. Thus, compound rhymes with a cut off final consonant are repeatedly encountered, cf. brought to you: glory (156), pity them: they fled (343), Persia: now shone (153), the head of the mountains reached: pride (154), 6 cases; of course, rhymes with cut-offs, which were also occasionally encountered before, th, eg. - don’t pound: golden (157), Caesars: on the childish face of the dawn (136), in the shining eyes of the dawn: Lazarus (152), etc. The favorite technique of unequally syllabic rhymes is represented in this group by 14 examples; Wed clay: I am innocent (149), strangers: I scream about whom I am (159), pour out at those doors: believe (159), they are the best naked in body: hymn (155), spots: from head to toe she (137), not there were lies behind it: lives (147), a hearse of Goths: facts (139), few widows were still in it: more monstrous (137) and so on. Thus, compound rhyme, combining all other deviations with those specifically inherent in it, represents the most dramatic example of rhyme-dissonance in Mayakovsky.

The destruction of consonance in the post-stress part of the rhyme is in most cases accompanied by Mayakovsky's compensation in the pre-stress part of the word. And in this respect, he goes much further than his predecessors: his rhymes not only cannot be called acoustically poor, but, on the contrary, they are almost always rich and deep. Wed. in particular - hats: smelling (144), humpbacked: Carpathians (152), chameleon: drunken (151), uneven: armored (143), by name: underneath they are (153), behind them: carnage (148), lamps lights her: agony (131), ice cheeks: pilots (137). This phenomenon is especially noticeable in masculine rhymes, which often in Mayakovsky capture the entire pre-stressed syllable, for example. to you: Tibet (155), winter: lands (140), on the forehead: began (135), wheel: Colosseum (136), blindness: sweat (131), cooled down: Tolstykh (134), heat: devouring (140) and etc. Exact and approximate rhymes are also subject to this system of pre-stress rhyme, thereby assimilating to the predominant type, for example. proud: cities (152), hut whether: squished (141), China: throwing (153), satyrs: bullies (158), divisions: motto (138), stopera: tapers (130), battalion: Taglioni (144), vate: beds (131), exploded: sobbing (140), etc. We even begin to feel rhymes with deviations in the pre-stress part, as inaccurate or approximate, for example. China: throwing, satyrs: bullies by type - by the collar: by the city, or - by the vein: lived (132), at the soul: suffocating (142), impaled: on the fathom (144), as a kind of compound rhyme. Thus, it seems to be planned new system rhymes in which the repetition-rhyme that organizes the rhythmic series is located on both sides of the stressed vowel. From a stylistic point of view, such rhymes, approaching homonymic (cf. in particular - Kante: Kante (134) or - Veins: Beny (133)), due to the combination in one consonance of distant, unexpectedly juxtaposed semantic series, give the impression of a punning rhyme , reminiscent of a semi-folk comic verse built on a play on words: “I was in Paris, I was closer, I was in Italy, I was further....”

In the composition of Mayakovsky's poems, these catchy rhymes play a particularly significant role. In metrical terms, Mayakovsky uses purely tonic verses, built on strong stresses, sometimes verbal, sometimes phrasal, and around such stress a rather large and sharply variable number of unstressed syllables is grouped (from 1-2 to 5-6).

In the simplest cases, the number of dominant, metrically significant stresses in each verse is the same (3 or 4); but even then rhyme plays a significant role in the metrical composition, indicating the boundaries of the series and the belonging of its rhythmic elements. All the more significant is rhyme in free stanzas that combine rhythmic series of various sizes and such a free metrical structure. In the absence of the usual pattern and system in the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables within a separate row, rhyme becomes a particularly important feature of metric composition: without rhyme, such verses might seem like prose (see above, p. 12). At the same time, thanks to the focus on stressed syllables that stand out sharply above the general dynamic level, those significant discrepancies in the psychologically weakened post-stressed part of the word that are so characteristic of Mayakovsky become possible. Coincidences in the supporting consonants of a stressed syllable and, in general, in those sounds that precede the stress, become especially significant in this system (cf. Germanic alliteration).

Currently, Mayakovsky's techniques have become quite widespread; Wed Imagist poems, e.g. Yesenina. It is difficult to foresee how long this new versification will last, as well as in general what fate awaits in the future the system of metrical forms that has spread among us over the past twenty years under the influence of Blok and Mayakovsky. Historical precedents rather suggest that after the revolutionary era in the history of Russian verse, which appeared under the sign of individualism and naturalism, there will come a return to the conservative, idealistic tradition of high style, to the canonical forms of verse and to “mastery,” which, in the wise words of Goethe, “is known in self-restraint." In any case, the history of rhyme in modern Russian poetry testifies to the conventionality of those concepts of rhyme that dominated science and poetic practice in the 19th century.