UC Berkeley

Rhyme and the Poetics of Authority explores the role rhyme has to play in the construction of poetic authority. The introduction defines rhyme by delimiting it to end rhyme, the repetition of linguistic melodies at the ends of corresponding lines. Because rhyme is an occasion to show mastery, it is also an occasion to earn authority. Authority represents one case for a basis of believability. By showing their mastery of the matter and the form poets claim authority and invite belief. One reason things are believed is that they are communicated by a trustworthy authority, what Aristotle identifies as ethos. Rhyme is a potent locus in which the problem of believability is foregrounded. It also foregrounds, though its reliance on artifice, the presence of an author or authors. I'm interested in the relationship of these properties to rhyme position, which I argue is a place where formal constraint can result in the display or concealment of poetic skill. To the extent that there is a relationship between authorial presence and the creation of believability, we can speak of an "epistemology" of rhyme. The temptation to erect a concordance between form and meaning in any given rhyme pair is great and offers the poet an opportunity to manipulate assumptions about what is knowable or "true" in the poem. Rhyme thus sets up an epistemological paradox: forms and meanings seem to correlate, and thus to be true and trustworthy, but there are reasons to distrust what the poet says at line's end. Chapter 1, "Towards an Epistemology of Rhyme," lays out in prosimetrical form (octosyllabic couplets with intercalated prose) some of the ways in which rhyme is used to construct truth, authority, and knowledge. I also discuss terminology, types and functions of rhyme, the debate around the origin of rhyme, and point to some innovative uses of rhyme in rap and hip hop lyrics. Chapter 2, "Wiþouten Lesing: Epistemic Rhyme Tags and Constructions of Authority in Middle English Verse Romance," discusses formulaic expressions which occur in rhyme position and convey information about the speaker's evaluation of the truth-status of the narrative. I argue that rhyme is a place in which authority is metatextually foregrounded, and the speaker attempts to shape the audience's experience of the text by making claims about the narratives' manner of reception, its mode of composition, its truth-status or its oral delivery. Chapter 3, "Thys May Ryme Wel but hyt Acorde Nouht: Middle English Nonsense Poetry," argues for the existence of Middle English nonsense poetry and shows that the nonsensical element of the poem often occurs in rhyme position. I also claim that nonsense authority is deliberately dubious; the material is perverse and subversive, and operates in reaction to contemporary constraints on language and behavior in the form of rhetorical manuals, treatises on sin, and sumptuary laws. Chapter 4, "Rhyme and Etymology," explores one case of a broader definition of rhyme by examining rhyme-like elements in ancient and medieval etymological practice, in which formal likeness is used as an argument for semantic likeness.