I

I. Introduction

I.1. Defining concepts

I.1.a. Rhyme

According to Websters Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary: rhyme represents: 1 a. a correspondence in terminal sounds of two or more words, lines of verse, or other units of composition or utterance; b. one or two or more words thus corresponding in sound; c. correspondence of other than terminal word sounds: as (1) Alliteration (2) Internal rhyme 2 a (1): rhyming verse (2): poetry b: a composition in verse that rhymes 3: Rhythm, Measure.

As for the classification of rhyme I have found a list adapted from Poetic Designs, by Stephen Adams (Broadview Press, 1997) and Manual of English Meters, by Joseph Malof (Bloomington: Indiana U Press, 1970).

The rhymes are distinguished by usage in the following ways:

Rhymes defined by nature of similarity:

Perfect rhyme, full rhyme, true rhyme: These terms refer to the immediately recognizable norm: true/blue, mountain/fountain.

Eye rhyme: This refers to rhymes based on similarity of spelling rather than sound. Often these are highly conventional, and reflect historical changes in pronunciation: love/move/prove, why/envy.

Identical rhyme: A word rhymes with itself, as in Emily Dickinsons Because I Could not Stop for Death:

We paused before a house that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground

The Roof was scarcely visible

The Cornicein the Ground.

Rich rhyme (from French rime riche): A word rhymes with its homonym: blue/blew, guessed/guest.

Assonant rhyme: Rhyming with similar vowels, different consonants: dip/limp, man/prank.

Consonant rhyme: Rhyming with similar consonants, different vowels: limp/lump, bit/bet.

Scarce rhyme: Rhyming on words with limited rhyming alternatives: whisp/lisp, motionless/oceanless.

Macaronic rhyme: Macaronic verse uses more than one language, as in mediaeval lyrics with Latin refrains. Macaronic rhyme is also bilingual: glory/pro patria mori, sure/kreatur, queasy/civilize.

Rhymes defined by relation to stress pattern

One-syllable rhyme, masculine rhyme: The norm, in which rhyme occurs on the final stressed syllables:One, two,

Buckle my shoe

Extra-syllable rhyme, triple rhyme, multiple rhyme, extended rhyme, feminine rhyme: These all refer to rhyming double or triple or multiple extra-syllable endings: dying/flying, generate/venerate, salubrious/lugubrious.

Light rhyme: Rhyming of a stressed syllable with a secondary stress: frog/dialog, live/prohibitive.

Wrenched rhyme: Rhyming of a stressed syllable with an unstressed syllable.This often occurs in ballads and folk poetry, often on conventional words like lady/a bee.

Rhymes defined by position

By Position in the Line

End rhyme, terminal rhyme: All rhymes occur at line endsthe standard procedure.

Initial rhyme: Rhyme that occurs within a line or passage, whether randomly (as below, on flow and grow) or in some kind of pattern:

A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow. These cherries grow, which none may buy Till "Cherry Ripe!" themselves do cry.

Leononine rhyme, medial rhyme: Rhyme that occurs at the caesura and line end within a single line--like a rhymed couplet printed as a single line:I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers.

Caesural rhyme, interlaced rhyme: Rhymes that occur at the caesura and line end within a pair of lines like an abab quatrain printed as two lines:Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove; But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love. Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harp-string of gold, A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?

By position in the Stanza or Verse Paragraph

Crossed rhyme, alternating rhyme, interlocking rhyme: Rhyming in an abab pattern.

Intermittent rhyme: Rhyming every other line, as in the standard ballad quatrain: xaxa.

Envelope rhyme, inserted rhyme: rhyming abba. Irregular rhyme: Rhyming that follows no fixed pattern (as in the pseudopindaric or irregular ode).

Sporadic rhyme, occasional rhyme: Rhyming that occurs unpredictably in a poem with mostly unrhymed lines.

Thorne line: A line left without rhyme in a generally rhymed passage.Rhyme across word boundaries

Broken rhyme: Rhyme using more than one word:

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-Dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

Linked rhyme: Rhyme that depends on completing the rhyme sound by enjambment over the line end:

But what black Boreas wrecked her? HeCame equipped, deadly electric,

Apocopated rhyme: Rhyming a line end with a penultimate syllable:

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

To some casual readers of Dickinsons poetry it may seem that the usage of rhyme - half-rhyme, off-rhyme, slant-rhyme, imperfect-rhyme or whatever term is given to rhymes that do not precisely echo - is infrequent and this provides a certain unfinished, amateur like, awkward aspect to her entire work. For instance they may think of exact rhyme such as: see, tree. She uses rhyme in forms that were not yet accepted till late in the nineteenth century and that are used by modern poets. Dickinson used to experiment with rhyme, and this can be seen throughout her poetry. I have found a series of rhymes that she used in her poems: Identical rhyme (sane, insane), eye rhyme (though, through), vowel rhymes (see, buy), imperfect rhymes (time, thin), and suspended rhyme (thing, along).

I.1.b.Rhythm

According to Websters Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, rhythm represents: 1. an ordered recurrent alternation of strong and weak elements in the flow of sound and silence in speech b: a particular example or form of rhythm (iambic). The most common units of rhythm in English are:

The iamb consists of two syllables, only the second accented (as in good-bye)

The trochee consists of two syllables only the first accented (as in awful)

The anapest consists of three syllables, with only the third stressed (as in Halloween)

The dactyl consists of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed (as in wonderful)

The spondee consists of two consecutive syllables that are both stressed (as in big deal)

Much of Emily Dickinsons poetry was rhythmic; all her verses show a pulse of inner rhythmical music. Something interesting about Dickinsons use of the rhythm was that form of hymn that she adopted in her poems. A good example of a poem written in this form is Youre right - the way is narrow-(234). In this poem the hymn meter is respected until the last line. It is a poem built from biblical quotations that challenges their certainty by means of rhythm and image. In the first stanza the first line and the third intermingle with Dickinsons remarks for the listener involved in the act of reading. The poem is build as a conversation about who should enter Heaven. The poem begins with biblical references and then uses the story of the rich man as the central image for the rest of the poem. Dickinson turns to a material image of the life in general as she places the reader in a world governed by brokers and discounts, dividends and costs. The precise financial transaction ends on note of incompleteness created by rhythm, sound and definition. The final line is truncated into a single iamb, the final words end with an open double s sound and the word itself describes uncertainty: I guess.

You're right - "the way is narrow" -

And "difficult the Gate" -

And "few there be" - Correct again -

That "enter in - thereat" -

'Tis Costly - So are purples!

'Tis just the price of Breath -

With but the "Discount" of the Grave -

Termed by the Brokers - "Death"!

And after that - there's Heaven -

The Good Man's - "Dividend" -

And Bad Men - "go to Jail" -

I guess -

I.1.c. Meter or Metre (chiefly Brit.)

According to Websters Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary meter represents: 1 a. systematically arranged and measured rhythm in verse: (1) rhythm that continuously repeats a single basic pattern (iambic) (2) rhythm characterized by regular recurrence in larger figures (ballad).

In classic Greek and Latin versification, meter depended on the way long and short syllables were arranged to succeed one another, but in English the distinction is between accented and unaccented syllables. The unit of meter is the foot. Metrical lines are named for the constituent foot and for the number of feet in the line: monometer (1), dimeter (2), trimeter (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter (6), heptameter (7), and octameter (8); thus, a line containing five iambic feet, for example, would be called iambic pentameter. Rarely does a metrical line exceed six feet.

The meter varies quite a bit from the stresses, which is expected in a hymn or ballad. By counting syllables the hymn meter differs from traditional meter. What I am trying to underline here is the fact that, unlike the writers of traditional hymns Dickinson took liberties with the meter. Some common forms of hymn meter that Dickinson used are common meter (a line of eight syllables followed by a line of six syllables, repeating in quatrains of an 8/6/8/6 pattern), long meter (8/8/8/8), short meter (6/6/6/6), and common particular meter (8/8/6/8/8/6).

I.2 Dickinson between Romanticism and Realism

Emily Dickinsons writing reflects, in many ways, the qualities of the time periods she wrote in; both Romanticism and Realism. Emily Dickinson wrote at the end of the Romantic period, and even though she was influenced by some of the ideals of Romanticism, is most commonly known as a writer from the Realist era. However, her writing embodies the defining characteristics that are identified with each of these periods.

The Romantic movement which originated in Germany but quickly spread to England, France, and beyond, reached America around the year 1820, some 20 years after William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In America as in Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and intellectual circles. Yet there was an important difference: Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national expansion and the discovery of a distinctive American voice. The solidification of a national identity and the surging idealism and passion of Romanticism nurtured the masterpieces of "the American Renaissance."

One of the major characteristics of Romanticism that Emily Dickinson portrays in her writing represents the emphasis on the importance of Nature to the Romantics. Most of her poems mention something found in nature. She loved nature and was inspired by the birds, the animals, the plants, and the changing seasons of the New England countryside.

In Poem 449, she refers to the moss that covers the names on the graves of the tombstones of Beauty and Truth. The Puritans believed Nature to be the kingdom of the devil. She included many references to Nature in her poems, this was her way of rebelling against the ideals of the Puritan background she despised so much.

Broadly defined as "the faithful representation of reality" or "verisimilitude," realism is a literary technique practiced by many schools of writing. Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of middle-class life. A reaction against romanticism, an interest in scientific method, the systematizing of the study of documentary history, and the influence of rational philosophy all affected the rise of realism. According to William Harmon and Hugh Holman, "Where romanticists transcend the immediate to find the ideal, and naturalists plumb the actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions, realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence" (A Handbook to Literature 428).

In American literature the term known as realism encompasses the period of time from the Civil War to the turn of the century during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, Mark Twain, and others wrote fiction devoted to specific representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts. The United States grew rapidly after the Civil War, the increasing rates of democracy and literacy, the rapid growth in industrialism and urbanization, an expanding population due to the immigration, and a relative rise in middle-class affluence provided a productive literary environment for readers interested in understanding these rapid shifts in culture.

Realists are considered to be concerned with poverty, extortion and the negative aspects of life; the harsh realities of life. In Poem 216, Emily uses words to create a metaphor for the Puritan way of life. She reveals how much they distance themselves from others and how living a Puritan way of life is much like walking on dead earth. In many ways, she mocks the wealthy Puritans too. It was their belief to not spend their money, but rather save it. In Poem 216, she is saying that all the money the Puritans obtain in life is spent on their tombstones since they are not allowed to enjoy their riches in this life. Many of her poems deal with death or dying, but this is simply a metaphor to express how depressing life has come to be in the present.

Realists were also trying to push for social reform through their writing, hinting at what may happen if reforms do not take place. Emily Dickinson views the Puritan life as a life that oppresses people from the joys it can bring. Puritans try to live a life full of hard work and little pleasure since pleasure is a thing of the devil. She suggests that unless change occurs, people will continue to live a dead, dreary life, lacking in passion and failing to embrace life and to revel in its joys.

Dickinson's 1,775 poems continue to intrigue critics, who often disagree about them. Some stress her mystical side, some her sensitivity to nature; many note her odd, exotic appeal. One modern critic, R.P. Blackmur, comments that Dickinson's poetry sometimes feels as if "a cat came at us speaking English." Her clean, clear poems are some of the most fascinating and challenging in American literature.The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.

The development of the self became a major theme; self-awareness a primary method. If, according to Romantic theory, self and nature were one, self-awareness was not a selfish dead end but a mode of knowledge opening up the universe. If one's self were one with all humanity, then the individual had a moral duty to reform social inequalities and relieve human suffering. The idea of "self" - which suggested selfishness to earlier generations - was redefined. New compound words with positive meanings emerged: "self-realization," "self-expression," "self-reliance."

As the unique, subjective self became important, so did the kingdom of psychology. She used artistic effects and techniques to develop and to evoke keen psychological states. The "sublime" -an effect of beauty in grandeur (for example, a view from the top of the mountain) - produced feelings of awe, reverence, vastness, and a power beyond human comprehension.

Romanticism was affirmative and suitable for most American poets and creative essayists. America's vast mountains, deserts, and tropics embodied the sublime. The Romantic spirit seemed particularly suited to American democracy: It stressed individualism, affirmed the value of the common person, and looked to the inspired imagination for its aesthetic and ethical values. Certainly the New England Transcendentalists - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and their associates - were inspired to a new optimistic affirmation by the Romantic Movement.

In her poems she keeps things as simple as possible by adopting a more compressed style of writing. She loves to explore the dark and the hidden part of the mind by celebrating death and the grave, just like Poe did in his well known poems. Notes Taken from: www.public.asu.edu

William Wordsworth (April 7, 1770 April 23, 1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge(October 21, 1772 July 25, 1834) was an English poet, critic and philosopher who was , along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the romantic movement in England.

Article taken from USA Literature in brief: Chapter 3, internet source: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/literature-in-brief/chapter03.htm

I died for Beauty -- but was scarce

puritan, n.: a member of a 16th and 17th century Protestant group in England and New England opposing as unscriptural the traditional and formal usages of the Church in England.

http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/realism.htm

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

"Romanticism, Realism and Emily Dickinson." 123HelpMe.com

http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=25762>.

ibidem

The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought. The movement was based on a fundamental belief in the unity of the world and God. The soul of each individual was thought to be identical with the world -- a microcosm of the world itself. The doctrine of self-reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual soul with God.

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, playwright, editor, critic, essayist and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre and mystery.

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