The Riches Of Rhyme: Studies In French V By Scott, Clive

This book is about the ways in which rhyme in French verse produces shapes or interferes with meaning - a topic which, despite its centrality, has hitherto received little critical attention. Part 1 examines those features which are peculiar to French rhyme - the different degrees of rhyme, rhyme gender, the frequency of rhymes on suffixes and endings - and explores the contributions they make to a poem''s structure and semantic productivity. Its concern is twofold: to test the adequacy of the current methods of classifying rhymes and to demonstrate how comprehensive interpretations of a poem can be constructed from its rhyme-data. But wider issues are also confronted, including the relationships between rhyme and textuality, between rhyme and truth, between rhyme and rhythm. Part 2 analyses specific plays, poems and collections of poems: Racine''s Mithridate, Moliere''s Les Femmes Savantes, Voltaire''s Poeme sur le Désastre de Lisbonne, Verlaine''s Fêtes galantes and Aragon''s Les Yeux d''Elsa.