(γγ) For such a loss there is only one possible compensation—that of rhyme. In other words, if—this is one aspect—it is no longer time-duration which receives objective expression, by means of which the sound of syllables flows on freely in the even movement that intrinsically belongs to them; if, furthermore, the intelligible significance dominates over the stem-syllables, and coalesces with the same without further organic expatiation into a determinate unity, we have no sensuous medium, such as is able to maintain itself independently of the time-measure, no less than this accentuation of the stem-syllables, finally left to us other than just this syllabic sound.
Such a sound, however, if it is to secure an independent attention, must, in the first place, be of a far more insistent kind than the interchange of different tones, such as we met with in the older verse metres; and its assertion must be of a far more overwhelming character than the stress of syllables can lay claim to in ordinary speech. What we now require has not only to compensate us for the loss of the articulate time-measure, but it further undertakes to reassert the sensuous medium in its opposition to that unqualified predominance of the accentuated significance. For when once the conceptive content has essentially attained the ideality and penetration of mind,[42] for which the sensuous aspect of speech is of no importance, the verbal sound must enforce itself still more positively and coarsely as distinct from this ideality in order to arrest our attention at all. In contrast, therefore, to the gentle movements of rhythmical euphony, rhyme is a crude expedient,[43] which requires an ear by no means either so trained or sensitive as that presupposed by Greek verse. Secondly, though it is true that rhyme does not here assert itself so much as distinct from the meaning of the stem-syllables simply as it does from the entire ideal content, yet it does at the same time so far assist the natural verbal sound as to win for it a relatively secure stability. But this object can only be attained if the sound[44] of particular words affirms itself in exclusive distinction from the resonance of other words, and thus secures an independent existence, by virtue of which isolation it satisfies the claims of the formative aspect of the verbal medium in forceful beats of sound. Rhyme is therefore, at least in its contrast to the evenly transfused movement of rhythmic euphony, a detached exhibition of exclusive tonal expression. Thirdly, we found that it was the ideality of the conscious self which, by virtue of its effort of ideal synthesis, came into its own, and discovered its personal satisfaction in such recurrences of sound. If, then, the means used in the older type of versification, with its copious variety of structure, disappear, there only remains, if we look at poetry, under the aspect of its medium, to support this principle of self-recovery, the more formal repetition of wholly identical or similar sounds, whereby again we are able to unite under an intelligible scheme[45] the assertion and relation of closely associated meanings in the rhyme-sounds of expressive words. The metre of rhythmical verse we may regard as a variously articulate interrelation of manifold syllabic quantities. Rhyme, on the contrary, is from one point of view more material;[46] yet, on the other hand, is itself more abstractly placed within this medium. In other words, it is the mere recollection of mind and the ear of the recurrence of identical or related sounds and significations—a recurrence in which the poet is conscious of his own activity, recognizes, and is pleased to recognize, himself therein as both agent and participant.
(γ) Finally, on the question of the particular types under which we may classify this more modern system of romantic poetry, I only propose to advert briefly to what appears to me of most importance in respect to alliteration, assonance, and ordinary rhyme.
(αα) The first, or at least the most thorough, example of alliteration is that we find elaborated in the earliest Scandinavian poetry, where it supplies the fundamental basis, whereas assonance and the terminal rhyme, albeit these two aspects play a by no means unimportant part, are, however, only present in certain particular kinds of such poetry. The principle of alliterative rhyme, letter rhyme, is rhyme in its most incomplete form, because it does not require the recurrence of the entire syllable, but only that of one identical letter, and primarily the initial letter only. Owing to the weakness of this type of recurrent sound it is, in the first place, therefore necessary that only such words should be used in its service, which already independently possess an express accent on their first syllable; and, secondly, these words must not be remote from one another, if the identity of their commencement is to make a real impression on the ear. For the rest, alliterative letters may be a vowel, no less than a double or single consonant; but it is primarily consonants which are of most importance in the scheme. Based on such conditions, we find in Icelandic poetry[47] the fundamental rule that all alliterative rhymes require accentuated[48] syllables, whose initial letters must not in the same lines occur in other substantives which have the accent on the first syllable; and, along with this, of the three words, the initial letters of which constitute the rhyme, two must be found in the first line, and the third, which supplies the dominant alliteration, must be placed at the commencement of the second line. We may add further that, in virtue of the abstract character of this identical sound of initial letters, words are generally made alliterative proportionally to the importance of their signification. We find, therefore, that here, too, the relation of accented sound to the meaning of words is not entirely absent. I cannot, however, pursue this subject into more detail.
(ββ) Secondly, assonance has nothing to do with initial letters, but makes a nearer approach to rhyme in so far as it is a recurrence in identical sound of the same letters in the middle or at the termination of different words. It is not necessary, of course, that these assonant words should in all cases come at the conclusion of a line; they may fall into other places. Mainly, however, it is the concluding syllables of lines which come into this mutual relation of assonance, as contrasted with alliteration which is effective rather at the line's commencement. In its richest elaboration we may associate this assonance of language with the Romance nations, more especially the Spanish, whose full-toned language is peculiarly adapted to this recurrence of the same vowels. As a rule, no doubt assonance is here restricted to vowels. But the language further permits of other variety of assonance, not only that of vowels, but also that of identical consonants and consonants in association with one vowel.
(γγ) That which, as above described, alliteration and assonance are only able to establish with incompleteness is abundantly fulfilled by rhyme. In it, and expressly to the exclusion of initial letters, we have asserted the wholly equable sound of entire verb stems,[49] which are, by virtue of this equability, brought into an express relation with their tonal utterance. We have no mere question now of the number of the syllables. Words of one syllable, no less than others of two or more, may be rhymed. By this means we not only get the masculine rhyme, which is restricted to words of one syllable, but also the feminine rhyme, which embraces words of two syllables, as also the so-called gliding rhyme, which reaches to three or even more syllables. It is in particular the languages of Northern Europe which incline to the first type, Southern languages to the second, such as the Italian and Spanish. The German and French languages would appear to lie between these two extremes. Rhymes of more than three syllables are rarely to be met with in any language.
The position of the rhyme is at the conclusion of the lines, in which the rhyming word, although there is certainly no reason that it should ever concentrate in itself the ideal expressiveness of the significance, nevertheless does attract attention to itself so far as the verbal sound is concerned; and, furthermore, it makes the different verses or stanzas follow one another either in accordance with the principle of a wholly abstract recurrence of the same rhyme, or by uniting, separating, and mutually relating them in a more elaborate mode of regulated change, and variously symmetrical interweaving of different rhymes with correspondent relations, sometimes more near, at others more remote, of every degree of complexity. In such a process the particular rhymes will at one point stare us in the face at once, or they will appear to have a game of hide-and seek; so that in this way our ear, as it listens, will at one time receive instant satisfaction, at another it will only find it after considerable delay, wherein the expectation will, as it were, be coquetted with, deceived, and kept on the stretch, until the assured end from point to point of artistically arranged recurrence is reached, and with it the hearer's approval.
Among the various types of the poetic art it is pre-eminently lyric poetry, which, by virtue of its ideality and personal quality of expression, most readily avails itself of rhyme, and thereby converts language itself into a music of emotion and melodic symmetry, a symmetry not merely of time-measure and rhythmical movement, but of the kind of resonance which finds a responsive echo in the inner life itself. To promote this, therefore, the art elaborates in its use of rhyme a more simple or complex system of strophes, every one of which is part of one organic whole. Examples of such an interplay of melodic sound, whether steeped in emotion or rich in ingenuity, are the sonnet, canzonet, triolet, and madrigal. Epic poetry, on the contrary, so long as it does not mingle lyrical subject-matter with its more native character, preserves a more equable advance in its construction, which does not easily adapt itself to the strophe. We have an obvious illustration of this in the triplet stanzas of Dante's "Divine Comedy," as contrasted with the lyrical canzonets and sonnets of the same poet. However, I must not permit myself to go further into detail.
(c) Now that we have in the above investigation separated rhythmical versification from rhyme, and contrasted the same, we may now proceed, thirdly, to ask ourselves whether a combination of the two is not also intelligible, and, indeed, actually employed. The existence of certain more recent languages will render exceptional and important aid to the solution; in other words, we cannot deny to these either a partial reassertion of our former rhythmical system, or, in certain respects, an association of the same with rhyme. We will, for example, confine our attention to our mother tongue, and, in reference to the first-mentioned aspect, it will be sufficient to recall Klopstock, who would have as little of rhyme as possible; who not merely in epic, but also in lyrical poetry, set himself to imitate the ancients with the greatest enthusiasm and persistency. Voss and others have followed in his steps, ever striving to enforce with increased strictness principles upon which to base this rhythmical treatment of our language. Goethe, on the contrary, never felt quite himself in his classical syllabic measures. He asks himself, not without reason: