Tail rhyme is a family of

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

ic verse forms used in poetry in French and especially English during and since the Middle Ages, and probably derived from models in

medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. It was also the administrative language in the former Western Roman Empire, Roman Provinces of Mauretania, Numidi ...

versification.

Michael Drayton Michael Drayton ( – ) was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era, continuing to write through the reign of James I and into the reign of Charles I. Many of his works consisted of historical poetry. He was also the fir ...

's "Ballad of Agincourt", first published in 1605, offers a simple English example, rhymed AAABCCCB; the shorter (dimeter) B-lines form the 'tail' lines and appear at regular intervals among the longer (trimeter) lines: Fair stood the wind for France, When we our sails advance, Nor now to prove our chance, Longer will tarry; But putting to the main, At Caux, the mouth of Seine, With all his martial train, Landed King Harry. (lines 1–8) However, tail rhyme stanzas can take many forms, potentially containing either more or fewer lines than this example. Tail rhyme is a principle of construction, not one set pattern; the "

Burns stanza The Burns stanza is a verse form named after the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who used it in some fifty poems. It was not, however, invented by Burns, and prior to his use of it was known as the standard Habbie, after the piper Habbie Simpson (155 ...

" is an example of a specific pattern which forms a sub-type of tail rhyme. __TOC__

Form

A tail rhyme stanza is united by intermittent lines which all rhyme with each other but do not rhyme with their immediately adjacent lines. Most commonly, as in the example from Drayton above, but not universally, the uniting tail lines are metrically shorter than the surrounding lines, and are the lines carrying the second rhyme heard in the stanza, the B-rhyme. The shortest possible tail rhyme stanza consists of six lines: two rhyming

couplet In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there ...

s, each followed by a tail line, AABCCB or AABAAB. AABAAB tail rhyme is the form of

Paul Laurence Dunbar Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American C ...

's "The Conquerors": Round the wide earth, from the red field your valor has won, Blown with the breath of the far-speaking gun, Goes the word. Bravely you spoke through battle cloud heavy and dun. Tossed though the speech toward the mist-hidden sun, The world heard. (lines 1–6) A "tail rhyme

quatrain A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four Line (poetry), lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India ...

" (ABAB) is not normally considered tail rhyme in English prosody, but rather a sub-type of

common metre Common metre or common measure—abbreviated as C. M. or CM—is a poetic metre consisting of four lines that alternate between iambic tetrameter (four metrical feet per line) and iambic trimeter (three metrical feet per line), with each foot co ...

. Tail rhyme need not employ couplets, as in the above example from Dunbar, or three-line blocks, as in the example from Drayton.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of ...

's poem "

The Lady of Shalott "The Lady of Shalott" () is a lyrical ballad by the 19th-century English poet Alfred Tennyson and one of his best-known works. Inspired by the 13th-century Italian short prose text '' Donna di Scalotta'', the poem tells the tragic story of El ...

" uses an AAAABCCCB structure, with the second tail line repeated throughout as a

refrain A refrain (from Vulgar Latin ''refringere'', "to repeat", and later from Old French ''refraindre'') is the Line (poetry)">line or lines that are repeated in poetry or in music">poetry.html" ;"title="Line (poetry)">line or lines that are repeat ...

: Willows whiten, aspens shiver. The sunbeam showers break and quiver In the stream that runneth ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls, and four gray towers Overlook a space of flowers, And the silent isle imbowers The Lady of Shalott. (1832 version, lines 10–18) Further variation in the arrangement of rhymes is possible.

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...

's poem "To Night" offers a complex example, in which the tail lines come second and last in a seven-line stanza, and the fourth line shares their rhyme but stays full-length (ABABCCB). Despite its unusual arrangement, this poem is usually admitted as an example of tail rhyme. Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear,— Swift be thy flight! (lines 1–7) In the first few centuries of its popularity, tail rhyme structures could grow to considerably greater lengths. The

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...

'' Sir Perceval of Galles'' is written in sixteen-line AAABCCCBDDDBEEEB stanzas: Lef, lythes to me Two wordes or thre, Of one that was faire and fre And felle in his fighte. His righte name was Percyvell, He was fosterde in the felle, He dranke water of the welle, And yitt was he wyghte. His fadir was a noble man; Fro the tyme that he began, Miche wirchippe he wan When he was made knyghte In Kyng Arthures haulle. Beste byluffede of alle, Percyvell thay gan hym calle, Whoso redis ryghte. (lines 1–16) In somewhat anachronistic modern terms, the main lines in this stanza are in trimeter while the tail lines are in dimeter.

History

Origins

Tail rhyme stanzas emerge in Old French, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English. No surviving treatises from the period explicitly discuss tail rhyme's construction or its origins, so estimates must be made from examining the surviving texts themselves. This task is complicated by the fact that tail rhyme is a simple formal principle and might have been invented in multiple places at multiple times. The most recent sustained study suggests that tail rhyme began as an imitation of the so-called "Victorine sequence" associated with the twelfth-century poet Adam of Saint Victor and used in a great many Latin hymns. The widely popular thirteenth-century hymn ''

Stabat mater dolorosa The Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Christianity, Christian Hymns to Mary, hymn to the Virgin Mary that portrays her suffering as mother during the Passion (Christianity), crucifixion of her son Jesus Christ. Its author may be either the Order o ...

'' exemplifies a Victorine sequence: Stabat mater dolorosa iuxta Crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat Filius. Cuius animam gementem, contristatam et dolentem pertransivit gladius. (lines 1–6) Though the exact arrangement of syllables in Victorine verse varied, ''Stabat mater'' demonstrates the most typical arrangement: lines rhymed AABCCB, the main lines being octosyllabic (eight syllables long) and the B-lines heptasyllabic (seven syllables).

Vernacular success

Tail rhyme was taken up by poets composing in

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th

Anglo-Norman French Anglo-Norman (; ), also known as Anglo-Norman French, was a dialect of Old Norman that was used in England and, to a lesser extent, other places in Great Britain and Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period. Origin The term "Anglo-Norman" har ...

spoken by some in England in the centuries after the Norman Conquest. The poems surviving in tail rhyme suggest associations between the form and high-minded moral or devotional material. A later twelfth-century poet known only as "Beneit" composed an extended French

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...

Thomas Becket Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then as Archbishop of Canterbury fr ...

, ''

La Vie de Thomas Becket LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smi ...

'', in AABAAB stanzas. The ''

Distichs of Cato The ''Distichs of Cato'' (Latin: ''Catonis Disticha'', most famously known simply as ''Cato'') is a Latin collection of proverbial wisdom and morality by an unknown author from the 3rd or 4th century AD. The ''Cato'' was the most popular medieva ...

'' were translated into Anglo-Norman tail rhyme verse twice, independently, in the twelfth century. Various kinds of tail rhyme were also deployed by the

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent Religious institute, religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor bei ...

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...

Nicholas Bozon Nicholas Bozon (''fl.'' ), or ''Nicole Bozon'', was an Anglo-Norman writer and Franciscan friar who spent most of his life in the East Midlands and East Anglia. He was a prolific author in prose and verse, and composed a number of hagiographies of ...

, who wrote in Anglo-Norman early in the fourteenth century. It has been suggested that the Franciscans might have had a particular attachment to tail rhyme. Early Middle English verse incorporated tail rhyme under the influence of Anglo-Norman. Tail rhyme is used in the thirteenth century '' Proverbs of Hendyng''. The chronicle of Peter Langtoft reports and quotes various tail rhyme popular songs on historical events in both Middle English and Anglo-Norman. Tail rhyme appears repeatedly in the

Harley Lyrics The Harley Lyrics is the usual name for a collection of lyrics in Middle English, Anglo Norman (Middle French), and Latin found in Harley MS 2253, a manuscript dated ca. 1340 in the British Library's Harleian Collection. The lyrics contain "both ...

, which are preserved in a manuscript from the first half of the fourteenth century but might in some cases have earlier origins. William of Shoreham deployed tail rhyme in some of his early fourteenth-century instructive poetry. A rare exception to the generally moral or devotional cast of earlier tail rhyme verse occurs in the thirteenth-century Middle English

fabliau A ''fabliau'' (; plural ''fabliaux'') is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs and clerics in France between c. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitud ...

'' Dame Sirith''.

Narrative use

In the fourteenth century, Middle English narrative romances particularly adopted tail rhyme, in an association between form and genre that occurred uniquely in English. Though a majority of surviving tail rhyme poems in Middle English are not romances, about a third of the surviving Middle English romances are in tail rhyme, giving the tail rhyme family of verse forms parity with rhyming couplets as the two most favoured approaches to writing Middle English romance. A non-exhaustive list of examples includes '' The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle'' and part of '' Beves of Hamtoun'' in six-line tail rhyme stanzas; one version of the Middle English ''Octavian'', in what would go on to be called the "Burns stanza"; ''Sir Amadace'', ''

Sir Gowther ''Sir Gowther'' is a relatively short Middle English Tail rhyme, tail-rhyme romance in twelve-line stanzas, found in two manuscripts, each dating to the mid- or late-fifteenth century. The poem tells a story that has been variously defined as a s ...

'' ''

Sir Isumbras ''Sir Isumbras'' is a medieval metrical romance written in Middle English and found in no fewer than nine manuscripts dating to the fifteenth century. This popular romance must have been circulating in England before 1320, because William of Na ...

'', '' The King of Tars'' and one version of ''

Ipomadon ''Ipomadon'' is a Middle English translation of Hugh of Rhuddlan's Anglo-Norman romance ''Ipomedon'' composed in tail-rhyme verse, possibly in the last decade of the fourteenth century. It is one of three Middle English renditions of Hugh's w ...

'' in twelve-line tail rhyme stanzas; and '' Sir Degrevant'' and, as noted above, '' Sir Perceval of Galles'' in sixteen-line stanzas.

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

only wrote one poem in tail rhyme, the tale of

Sir Thopas "Sir Thopas" is one of ''The Canterbury Tales'' by Geoffrey Chaucer, published in 1387. The tale is one of two—together with The Tale of Melibee—told by the fictive Geoffrey Chaucer as he travels with the pilgrims on the journey to Canterbury ...

in the ''Canterbury Tales''. This is the first tale told by Chaucer's fictionalised version of himself within the frame narrative of the ''Tales'', and it is received poorly by the other pilgrims. Due to its content, its tail rhyme form, and the negative reaction of the fictional audience, Sir Thopas is often interpreted as a parody, either affectionate or satirical, of other Middle English romances. Poets writing in Middle English who regarded themselves as followers or successors of Chaucer, such as

Thomas Hoccleve Thomas Hoccleve or Occleve (1368/69–1426) was a key figure in 15th-century Middle English literature, significant for promoting Chaucer as "the father of English literature", and as a poet in his own right. His poetry, especially his longest w ...

and

John Lydgate John Lydgate of Bury () was an English monk and poet, born in Lidgate, near Haverhill, Suffolk, Haverhill, Suffolk, England. Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and estab ...

, adopted other aspects of Chaucerian verse form, such as early

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter ( ) is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in each line. Meter is measured in small groups of syllables called feet. "Iambi ...

and the

rhyme royal Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyme, rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English literature, English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a mo ...

stanza, but did not write in tail rhyme, possibly indicating that for them the form was associated with popular and lesser romances.

Modern English use

In the sixteenth century, tail rhyme romance continued to circulate in manuscript and early print in England and Scotland. However, the production of sustained narratives in tail rhyme dropped off, and tail rhyme forms were once more predominantly found in short poems rather than as the backbone forms of long stories. The favoured tail rhyme stanza forms, too, also shortened, with fewer examples of the twelve- and sixteen-line tail rhyme stanzas that had proved successful in Middle English. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, the most popular tail rhyme stanza was AABCCB, with the main lines in tetrameter and the B-lines in either trimeter or dimeter.Max Kaluza, ''A Short History of English Versification, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'', translated by A. C. Dunstan (London: Macmillan, 1911), p. 351. Poets who have used tail rhyme include

Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; – 13 January 1599 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) was an English poet best known for ''The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the House of Tudor, Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is re ...

("March" in ''

The Shepheardes Calender ''The Shepheardes Calender'' (originally titled ''The Shepheardes Calendar, Conteyning twelve Aeglogues proportionable to the Twelve monthes. Entitled to the Noble and Vertuous Gentleman most worthy of all titles both of learning and chevalrie ...

''), Michael Drayton ("Ballad of Agincourt", quoted above),

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

("To the Daisy" and "The Green Linnet', both AAABCCCB) and

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

, in his numerous poems using the "Burns stanza". Occasionally, poets have resurrected the tradition of longer heroic narratives in tail rhyme in conscious acts of

medievalism Medievalism is a system of belief and practice inspired by the Middle Ages of Europe, or by devotion to elements of that period, which have been expressed in areas such as architecture, literature, music, art, philosophy, scholarship, and variou ...

: one example is

Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote many plays – all tragedies – and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the Eleve ...

's ''Tale of Balen'', which retells the story of

Sir Balin Balin the Savage, also known as the Knight with the Two Swords, is a character in Arthurian legend. He is a relatively late addition to the medieval Arthurian world. His story, as told by Thomas Malory in ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', is based upon t ...

from

Thomas Malory Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'A ...

's prose '' Morte d'Arthur'' in AAAABCCCB stanzas.

References

{{Poetic forms Poetic forms Rhyme Stanzaic form