Lecture 13: It turns out that rhyming is not that simple! We must talk about rhyme

1. What is rhyme?

Rhyme, also called pressure rhyme, associative rhyme, and leaf (xié) rhyme, is to arrange words with the same or close finals in sentences according to certain rules. the end of. Generally speaking, the end of even-numbered sentences in poetry must be words with the same or similar rhymes, which are called rhymes or rhymes.

For example:

The sun sets over the mountains and the Yellow River flows into the sea.

If you want to see a thousand miles away, take it to the next level.

Among them, "liu" and "lou" are rhymes. The final rhymes of these two words are "iu" and "ou" respectively, which are considered to have the same rhyme.

2. Why rhyme?

Rhyme is the basic feature and basic requirement of rhyme. The reason why rhyme is rhyme is first of all because of rhyme. Poems and words are both refined rhymes.

Why rhyme? It is just to read smoothly and rhythmically, so that it can be recited or sung. What ordinary people call "jingle" lies in the word "shun". The "shun" effect here is mainly achieved through rhyme.

If you can't even rhyme, it doesn't even count as a "rhyme," let alone poetry. The requirements for rhyme in poetry are much stricter and more complex than those in jingles.

Moreover, rhyme is not just for the pursuit of "smoothness". Poets use various changes in rhyme to reflect emotions and enhance the appeal of poetry. Rhyme itself has become a rhetorical method rich in connotation rather than just form.

3. Rhyming of modern poetry

Modern poetry is the kind of metrical poetry formulated in the Tang Dynasty, including five or seven character quatrains and verses, as well as five or seven character rhythms.

The rhyme of modern poetry is usually the last word of an even-numbered sentence. For example, the second and fourth lines of quatrains and the second, fourth, sixth and eighth lines of rhymed poetry. But the first line can also rhyme, but that becomes another metrical pattern. The rhyming style of the first sentence is called the "first sentence into rhyme" style, for example:

There is a bright moonlight in front of the bed, and it is suspected to be frost on the ground.

Look up at the bright moon and lower your head to think about your hometown.

The first line of this poem begins to rhyme.

The rhyme of the first sentence is looser than that of other rhymes. What do you call looseness? This involves the rules of the phonetic book. In ancient times, there were rhyme books specially used for writing poems and lyrics, which classified all words according to different rhymes and divided them into different rhymes. Poets call it rhyme, opera singers call it rhyme.

Some rhyme parts are close to the final rhymes of other rhyme parts, which are called adjacent rhymes. In the meter that stipulates that adjacent rhymes cannot be used, the first sentence can use adjacent rhymes. This is called looseness.

The rhyme of modern poetry generally uses flat rhyme, and oblique rhyme is not recommended. Of course, there are occasional poets who write modern poetry with oblique rhyme, but it is not considered mainstream.

4. What is Ping Ze?

What does Ping Ze mean? In ancient times, tones were divided into four categories, namely flat, rising, going and entering, which were called the "four tones". The level tone is divided into two types: Yin Ping tone and Yang Ping tone, so the "four tones" are also called the "five tones".

According to Mandarin, the Yinping tone is one tone, the Yangping tone is the second tone, the rising tone is the third tone, and the falling tone is the fourth tone. These are the four tones in Mandarin.

So where did the sound go?

There is no Ru tone in Mandarin. The ancient Ru tone has been classified into the four tones. The oblique tone is actually a very unique tone. When pronounced, the sound is short and the sound is drawn into the throat. Therefore, the character "Ru Ting" is born with a choking and tragic temperament.

Yin is flat and Yang is flat, which is a flat sound. Shang, Lai and Ru are all flat sounds. According to Mandarin, the first and second tones are flat tones, and the third and fourth tones are oblique tones. In this way, the four or five tones are simplified into two categories, and they are said to be equal to each other.

When I sleep in spring, I don’t realize the dawn, and I can hear the singing of birds everywhere.

The sound of wind and rain at night makes you know how many flowers have fallen.

This poem uses oblique rhyme, and the first sentence is in rhyme, and the four sentences have three rhymes.

Note that poems with oblique rhymes do not use rhyme characters, and generally use flat-tone characters. For example, the "sound" in "The sound of wind and rain at night" in this poem is a sound in Mandarin and belongs to flat-tone characters.

Similarly, in poems with flat rhymes, characters that do not fit into the rhyme should use oblique tones. In this way, the obscurity at the end of each sentence forms a contrast. In addition, the obscurities alternate within one sentence, and the obscurities within two sentences are opposite to each other. The reading is rhythmic and rhythmic.

5. Rhyming of words

Since words are lyrics written for a fixed piece of music, each word must meet the requirements of the music in order to be easy to sing, so the rhyme of words is better than Modern poetry is not only demanding, but also more complex and changeable.

For example, the rhyme of "Moon on the West River":

Magpies are frightened by the bright moon, and cicadas sing in the breeze in the middle of the night. The fragrance of rice flowers tells of a good harvest, and the sound of frogs sounds.

Seven or eight stars are outside the sky, and two or three points of rain are in front of the mountain. In the old days, by the forest of Maodian Society, I suddenly saw a bridge over a stream when the road turned.

"Moon over the West River" is divided into two parts. The rhythm of the two parts is the same, which means singing it again to the same tune. Each piece has four sentences, the first sentence does not rhyme, and the last character must be a oblique tone character, such as "magpie", which is the fourth tone of Mandarin; the second and third sentences rhyme, and must have a flat tone rhyme, such as "cicada" , "年", both have two tones in Mandarin, which are flat tones, and the finals are "an" and "ian", which rhyme with flat tones;

The fourth sentence also rhymes with, such as "片", which has the final rhyme It's "ian". But the difference is that this rhyme must be changed to oblique tone. "Pian" is the fourth tone in Mandarin, which is a oblique tone. This kind of rhymes are all in the same rhyme but different in level and level, which is called "Ping and level rhyme". This situation is relatively common in words.

The second film of "Moon on the West River" also follows the same pattern.

There are also many word cards that all use oblique rhyme. For example, "Ru Meng Ling" is a kind of word card with oblique rhyme.

I often remember that the sun is setting in the creek pavilion, and I am so drunk that I don’t know my way back.

Returning to the boat late after all the fun, I strayed into the depths of lotus flowers.

Fighting for the crossing, fighting for the crossing, startling a pool of gulls and herons.

The first sentence is in rhyme. The final rhymes of "Evening", "Lu", "Chu", "Du" and "Heron" are all "u", and they are all oblique characters. The third sentence doesn't rhyme, so the last character "zhou" has a flat tone. The repetition of "fighting for crossing, fighting for crossing" in it is also a metrical requirement and must be repeated.

The rhyme used in poems like "Ding Feng Bo" is more complicated:

On a warm day, the window reflects the green gauze, and the spring water in the small pond soaks in the clear clouds. The trees and begonias are all red, struggling to endure, and the jade boudoir hides the beauty of the years.

The embroidery bed is messy, the heart is broken, and the tears are piercing the edges of the face. The neighbor girl asked for news, and she was embarrassed that she had not returned home.

This word card is also divided into upper and lower parts. Look at the first two sentences in the film, which rhyme with "sha" and "xia"; the second and third sentences also rhyme, but they do not follow the rhyme of "sha" and "xia", but change to another rhyme, and It has also been changed to oblique rhyme, that is, "end" and "endure"; and the fifth sentence returns to the previous two sentences and continues to rhyme with "sha" and "xia", which is the word "hua". This change of rhyme is called "rhyme change" or "rhyme change".

The same goes for the second sentence. The first two sentences change rhyme again, that is, "Luan" and "Duan", this new oblique rhyme; while the third sentence changes to flat rhyme again, following the "sha" from the previous piece. The rhymes of "Xia" and "Hua" are "flower"; in the fourth and fifth sentences, it turns into oblique rhyme, and then the rhymes of "end" and "endure" in the previous film are "question" and "xin". Then the last sentence switches back to the plain rhyme, returning to the original rhyme of "sha" and "xia", which is "home".

This word brand has both oblique and oblique rhymes, and it changes rhymes many times, making it very complicated.

6. Rhyming in ancient style

Small poems in ancient style usually rhyme with only one rhyme, and the form is similar to that of modern poetry, but the use of oblique rhyme is more common.

The characteristics of ancient rhyme are mainly reflected in long works such as Song Xing. The main ones are changing rhymes, changing rhymes between levels and obliques, etc., but they are much simpler than changing rhymes between words. Generally speaking, the rhyme changes in song lines are related to content and emotion, and are used to distinguish the levels of chapters.

In narrative poems, character dialogue often does not say who said it, but just after you finish speaking, I will continue. It is not obvious from the text that the characters have been changed. At such times, a rhyme is often used as a reminder.

As for lyrical songs, the change of rhyme is related to emotion and plot. Let’s take a look at Li Bai’s “The Wine Will Come in”:

Don’t you see the water of the Yellow River coming up from the sky and flowing Once you reach the sea, you will never return.

"Lai" and "Hui" rhyme once.

Don’t you see, the bright mirror in the high hall has sad white hair, and it looks like blue silk in the morning and turns to snow in the evening.

If you are proud of life, you must have all the fun, and don’t let the golden bottle stand empty against the moon.

Change the oblique rhymes once, "fa", "雪", and "月", and the adjacent rhymes rhyme with oblique sounds.

I am born with talents that will be useful, and I will come back after all my money has been spent.

If you enjoy cooking sheep and slaughtering cattle, you will have to drink three hundred cups at a time.

Change the rhyme again to flat rhyme, "come", "cup".

Master Cen, Dan Qiusheng, is about to drink wine, but don’t stop drinking.

A song with you, please listen to me.

Bells, drums, food and jade are not expensive, but I hope I will never wake up after being drunk for a long time.

In ancient times, all the sages were lonely, but only the drinkers left their names.

This paragraph changes rhyme again, to another flat rhyme, namely "生", "stop", "awake", and "name". "Xing" here means "waking up from wine", which in ancient times was a flat sound.

In the old days, King Chen had a banquet and had a lot of fun and banquets.

What does the master mean when he has less money? It is up to you to sell it.

The rhyme is changed to oblique rhyme again, that is, "乐", "谑", and "自", three characters with the same rhyme as the entry tone.

The five-flowered horse and the golden fur will be exchanged for fine wine, and we will sell the eternal sorrow with you.

Change the rhyme again, that is, "Qiu" and "Chou".

If you find any words above that don’t seem to rhyme, it is due to the difference in pronunciation between ancient and modern times.

This is the rhyme used in this poem. You can look at it from the content. Every change of rhyme comes with changes in content and emotion. It should also be noted that the first sentence of oblique tone rhyme does not use rhyme, so it usually ends with flat tone rhyme. If there is no rhyme before the flat tone rhyme, it usually ends with the oblique tone.

7. Taboos about rhyming

For modern poetry, lyrics, and music, which have metrical requirements, the rhyme should be in accordance with the metrical requirements. Random rhymes that violate the metrical requirements are called rhymes. It's a problem.

In poetry styles such as ancient style songs that do not have strict requirements, we must pay attention to a problem, which is "mixed rhymes of flat and oblique rhymes". "Mixed rhyme and oblique rhymes" does not mean that a poem cannot be converted into oblique and oblique rhymes, but it means that words in a rhyme part but with different oblique and oblique rhymes cannot rhyme. For example, the flat sound of "LAN" cannot be combined with the oblique sound of "Lan", and the oblique sound of "Yang" cannot be combined with the flat sound of "Yang".

Of course, two sentences rhyme with "LAN" in flat tone, and the next two sentences rhyme with "Lan" in oblique tone. This is okay, because this is a change of rhyme, not a mixture of flat and oblique rhymes.

In addition, there are the following common taboos in rhyming, which cannot occur in metrical style (modern poetry, lyrics, music) and ancient style:

The first one is heavy rhyme. In a poem, the rhyming words are the same. For example, if you rhyme with "an", you have used "LAN" before, and after a few sentences there is "LAN" as the rhyme, which is not acceptable.

The second type is synonymous. For example, "fragrance", "flower", "sorrow", these cannot be used as rhymes in a poem at the same time.

The third type is falling rhyme. In ancient times, "East" and "Winter" were not in the same rhyme part. In some poem styles, they could not rhyme together. If they rhymed together, it would be a missed rhyme. Some people simply call it "out of rhyme".

The fourth type is rhyme. To rhyme is to use a word that rhymes but is very awkward in the rhyme position. At first glance, it seems that the word is made up for the purpose of rhyming.

The fifth type is reverse rhyme. Inverted rhyme is actually a type of rhyme, which is to reverse the characters of commonly used fixed phrases just for the sake of rhyme. For example, "spring, summer, autumn and winter" is written as "spring, summer, winter and autumn", "left and right" is written as "right and left", etc., resulting in An awkward state.

The sixth type is that the word with multiple meanings is not the original meaning. For example, you cannot use the flat-sounding character "Xian" in "fresh" as the oblique-sounding character in "rare" to make up the oblique-sounding rhyme of "Xian". For example, a poem originally rhymed with "suffering", and one of the sentences ended with "vocal swallowing". You can't say that this character is also pronounced "yan", because here the meaning can only be pronounced "ye".

8. About rhyme books

Whether it rhymes or not does not depend on your pronunciation, and you cannot say that it rhymes in my dialect. Whether it rhymes or not can be judged by independent standards.

The ancient tradition is that the rhyme used in poetry, lyrics, and poems is different from both ancient vernacular and ancient mandarin, and has an independent and dedicated set of rhyme rules. The first royal norm of this kind of rule was formulated during the period of Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty. Later generations basically used this as a blueprint, and every dynasty and generation had official revisions.

Although these have great overlap with Mandarin, they are still a system with special pronunciation. Singers master this pronunciation and use it in singing. Therefore, poems, lyrics, music, etc. that serve for singing must follow this set of pronunciation standards. Although some of these styles later separated from music, they still continued the tradition of phonological norms.

This question is designed to involve the development of phonology and the changes in dialects. It is very interesting and will be discussed as a special topic in the future.

Up to now, we write poems and music not just for singing. We don’t even know what the ancient singing methods and music scores were like. But there are still some people who insist on using ancient rhymes to write poems with old titles.

Of course, there are also a group of people who advocate using the pronunciation of Mandarin to write, and write how to read, which is more suitable for reciting in Mandarin.