The rhyme scheme denotes the ending of a verse and its relationship to other verses within a poem. In other words, we can use the rhyme schema to indicate which endings correspond to each other in a lyric stanza or to the entire poem, and to indicate these sequences by recurring letters.
In this context, abbreviations like ABAB or ABBA do not mean a Swedish pop group, but the individual rhymes in a work. If, for example, we were to look at the first stanza from Heinrich Heine’s poem, Die Wanderratten, we might notice that the underlined words are rhyming.
There are two varieties of rats:
The hungry and rich.
The rich remain happy to the house,
The hungry but wander out.
This means that these words sound very similar and almost equal. Like sun and bliss or mouse and house, whereby the poem gets its own rhythm. However, in Heine’s work, we can also conclude that rats rhymes on the rich and the up, but not otherwise. House and rats does not sound the same and therefore does not rhymes accordingly.
In order to see the rhyme schema clearly, we would have to change the above subdivision somewhat, so that the rhyme scheme can be more clearly indicated. For this reason, we usually mark the words that are aligned to each other in different colors. We may use colored text markers.
There are two varieties of rats:
The hungry and rich.
The rich remain happy to the house,
The hungry but wander out.
Now we see clearly which words are rhyming with one another and can determine the rhyme scheme of the text. In principle, we could note that the rhyme scheme is twice red and twice green. Or a little more precisely: red, red, green, green.
In literary science, however, one has agreed to use the same letters to characterize the rhyme scheme and does not use colors. This is due to the fact that colors can not be displayed correctly in every medium, and perhaps because not all people have the same text markers at home?
So we set the letter A for the red and the letter B for the green marking. However, we have also been given a lower-case description of the rhyme schema, which is why our letters a and b are.
a
a
b
b
There are two varieties of rats:
The hungry and rich.
The rich remain happy to the house,
The hungry but wander out.
The rhyme scheme in the first stanza of the poem would therefore be aabb. This sequence of letters is referred to as the pair rhyme. Since this pattern is very catchy and easy, the pair rhymes often appear in childrens or spells and is thus one of the most frequent rhymes.
Note: At the end of the article, you will find an overview of all the usual rhyme schemas that can be found in lyric poetry. In the first place, we would like to illustrate what has been shown by means of another work, and illustrate the basic approach by means of further examples.
Reim scheme
The presented principle can now be transferred naturally. This means that in a poem we always mark the endings of the same color as each other. It does not have to be a pair of rhymes hidden behind a poem.
Let’s take a look at the story of the panther by Rainer Maria Rilke and also highlight the different rhymes. The rhyme scheme is somewhat more complex, but still follows a transparent and recurring pattern.
His gaze is from the passing of the bars
so tired that he does not hold anything.
It is as if there were a thousand bars
and behind a thousand bars no world.
The soft course of supple strong steps,
which rotates in the very smallest circle,
is like a dance of force around a center,
in which a great will is stunned.
Only sometimes does the curtain of the pupil push
English translation – Linguee Propose as a translation of. Then a picture goes in,
goes through the limbs tense silence –
and cease to be in the heart.
In the poem above, however, we can see a continuous pattern, which is recurring in the individual lines. This is how rhymes begin to exist and keeps on the world. Accordingly, we could hold that the first verse of a verse rhymes to the third verse and the second verse to the fourth.
In Heine’s work, the following line always rhymed with the previous one, which is why we explained the whole to the couple rhyme (aabb). In Rilke’s poem, however, we find the rhyme scheme, which is called the cross-rhyme because the rhymes are intersected.
Note: The other letters, ie c, d, e and f, are only there to distinguish between the different rhymes. In principle, the rhyme scheme is naturally abab. However, the first verse of the second verse does not rhyme to the first verse of the first stanza, which is why we use a new letter for identification.
Overview of Reimschema
There are, of course, more rhyming schemas besides the cross and pair rhymes. However, since not infinite combinations are possible, one differentiates between ten forms.
In the following you will find a clear list of each species. However, we would like to point out that the latter rhymes are really rare. Pupils should focus on the first 7 patterns and the other patterns may be streaked.
Note: The most important thing is that we notice irregularities when reading, which is why an exact knowledge of the names for very rare special cases is not always necessary. In this case, it is usually sufficient to specify the sequence of the rhymes by the sequence of letters.
pair rhyme