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The Physical Basis of Rime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Henry Lanz
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Extract

The history of rime reveals an interesting coincidence. Rime was practically unknown to the ancients. It probably originated in the early mediaeval Latin of the age of Tertullian (155-222) in connection with the choral singing in the Christian churches, and came to prominence in the poetry of troubadours, precisely at the time when the modern European music came into existence. It is well known that the troubadours produced the first learned musicians in Europe. In the thirteenth century Adam de la Halle wrote his celebrated play, “Jeu de Robin et Marion,” which is considered as the first example of pastoral play and comic opera in France, and is—according to Suchier—the oldest musical play in Europe. At the same time it is one of the first dramatic experiments in which rime is extensively used. It was not before the fifteenth century, however, that rime was universally accepted throughout Northern Europe as a powerful device of literary expression. And at the same time, i.e., in the first half of the fifteenth century, John Dunsdale, an Englishman, invented counterpoint, and through his musical compositions acquired an international reputation. Thus our European sense for rime appears to have been trained in the great school of music. The origin of rime coincides with the origin of modern harmony.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 1926 , pp. 1011 - 1023
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

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References

1 Herman Suchier and A. Birch-Hirschfeld, Geschichte der Französischen Literatur, p. 272.

2 Sidney Lanier (Music and Poetry, p. 3) maintains that we must “abandon the idea that music is a species of language—which is not true—and substitute for that the converse idea that language is a species of music.” Lanier's contributions to this problem, however, are lacking any exact physical basis, and are confined to mere analogies.

3 Herder, Werke, XVIII, 29: “Da der Rhythmus der Griechen verloren ist und sich der poetischen Genius hier ungebildeten, mit dem Rönischen Volksdialect vermischten Sprachen mittheilen soll, so werden in dieser Verwirrung ohne Sylbenmasse der Alten sich ohne Zweifel rohere Volksgesänge nach dem Model der Mönchpoesie formen. Was das innere Maas und Gewicht der Sylben nicht thun kann, wird der Reim ersetzen sollen mit dem von jeher das Ohr und die Zunge der Völker spielte.”

4 R. Müller-Freienfels, Psychologie der Kunst, II, 82.

5 Th. Lipps, Aesthetic, p. 400-401: “Zum Versrhythmus tritt der Reim, als ein verwandetes und doch auch wiederum dazu gegensätzliches Element. . . . . Der Endreim scheidet und verbindet verse. Er schliesst unmittelbar aufeinanderfolgende Verse zu einem Ganzen zusammen.” Similar views are maintained by M. H. Liddell and V. Zirmunski.

6 G. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty, p. 173.

7 J. S. Schütze, Versuch einer Theorie des Reims, p, 18.

8 Tieck, Kritische Schriften I, 187: “Es ist nichts weniger als Trieb zu Künstlichkeiten oder zu Schwierigkeiten, welche den Reim zerst in die Poesie eingeführt hat, sondern die Liebe zu Ton und Klang, das Gefühl, dass die ähnlich lautenden Worte in deutlicher oder geheimnisvoller Verwandtschaft stehen müssen, das Bestreben die Poesie in Musik, in etwas Bestimmt-Unbestimmtes zu verwandeln.” (Quoted from Ehrenfeld, Studien zur Theorie des Reims.)

9 Heimholte, Die Lehre von den Tohemfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik.

10 D. C. Miller, The Science of Musical Sounds, p. 244.

11 “The acoustic analysis of the vowels,” Physical Review, April, 1900.

12 See M. H. Liddell, “The Physical Characteristics of Speech Sound” (Bulletin of Purdue University).