Musicals rhyme. As you know, dear Reader, I've been packing a rhyming dictionary for two years working on Oak Floors!
When it works, rhyme is beautiful, not to mention necessary for audience satisfaction. As when Eliza sings
I only know when he
began to dance with me
I could have danced, danced, danced all night.
in My Fair Lady, or when Adelaide laments both her cold and her reluctant boyfriend in Guys and Dolls:
You can spray her wherever you figure
The streptococci lurk
You can give her a shot
For whatever she's got
But it just won't work
If she's tired of getting the fish-eye
From the hotel clerk
A person
Can develop a cold
Let's add this playful but cannibalistic exchange between Sweeney Tood and Mrs. Lovett (best heard and seen, as here in a West End revival):
But for budding poets, like the 14 in my Creative Writing class, my advice is to avoid it. If there's anything to the equation I've been pitching--material (one's store of stories, experiences, desires, fears, etc.) + craft = art--the problem with rhyme is that it's a craft issue that diverts beginning writers from going for the heart(s) of their material. For these writers, rhyme is one of those things--like "poetic language," beginning lines with caps, elevated imagery--more to be cleared away than encouraged.
I suppose that sounds pedantic. It is!
Monday, 4 February 2019
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