Pararima is a poetic convention that creates dissonance in a poem by using words with similar starting and ending sounds but different vowel sounds. It was used by poets such as Wilfred Owen, Dylan Thomas, and WH Auden. Mezza rhyme is a similar technique that uses words with similar sounds but different beginnings or endings. Reading these poems aloud can enhance their impact.
Pararima, also called double consonance or sometimes quasi-rhyme, is a type of poetic convention that can be used to create dissonance in a poem. Although the term and first use of pararima is attributed to the English World War I poet, Edmund Blunden, many associate this poetic convention with other 20th-century poets. In particular, fellow World War I poet Wilfred Owen is best known for the use of him in his unfinished poem Strange Meeting. Dylan Thomas and WH Auden also used this type of partial rhyme in some poems.
Basic pararima usually have starting and ending sounds that are the same, while altering the sound of a word’s vowel. Words that could be used in this way include the following:
Night/Nothing
Block/Black/Desolate
Laugh/Loft
There are many other examples and of course you can think of your own. Sometimes words that don’t have a rhyming accompaniment are used in a pararhyme format. So, for example, the word “silver” might rhyme with “solver” and there are also some pararims for “orange,” one of those words that simply defies rhyme.
This poetic technique was particularly effective in the graphic poems of Wilfred Owen, whose work still stands out as a commentary on the horrors of the First World War. Perhaps the most famous rhyme of all is hall / hell, used by Wilfred in the following line from Strange Meeting: “And by his smile I knew that gloomy hall, / By his dead smile I knew we were in hell.” The lack of rhyming sounds here and the very failure of two similar rhyming words can cause a sense of great discomfort and the feeling that something is simply not right. It’s a sour note that goes well with the ominous atmosphere of the poem.
A similar technique to pararima is mezza rhyme. This is when words sound similar but may differ in ending or beginning, as well as having a different vowel sound. WB Yeats has used this technique quite often, rhyming words like mouth/truth or come/fame. Owen also made considerable use of mezzo-rhyme, often interspersing mezzo-rhyme endings with pararimes, to give an overall skewed feel to the end of each line.
One of the things pararime and mezze rhyme illustrate is that poetry should never be thought of as a silent art. Reading poems aloud when they contain these minor linguistic differences can make a significant difference in how a poem is perceived, interpreted, and perceived. Some pararhymes leap off the page, and others are much more apparent when a poem is read aloud.
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