Perfect and Imperfect Rhyme: Romances in the abab Tradition

This article focuses on a group of Middle English romances composed in four-line stanzas rhyming abab. Surviving examples of this form include Thomas of Erceldoune, The Sowdone of Babylon, The Knight of Courtesy, and the fragmentary Partonope of Blois. Since these romances are from different dialect areas, the verse form appears to have been a popular one in medieval England. Examining the quality of the rhymes in the extant manuscripts, we show that both the original poets and the scribes of these romances were happy to tolerate imperfect rhyme. Two common types of imperfect rhyme, “feature rhyme” and “subsequence rhyme,” are discussed, and we provide analogues for such rhymes in medieval and modern song, from nursery rhymes to Latin hymns. We conclude by suggesting that the use of so-called “imperfect” rhyme is linked with oral performance and that it was in fact perfectly acceptable in this context.