Something can start off dark, even heinous, written hundreds of years ago, and by the time it hits modernity, it’s as soft and fluffy as a cloud. Or it can have rumors attached to it that seemingly ...

Rhyme thrives at both poles of literature. It is the material of a greeting card—“Roses are red / Violets are blue / Sugar is sweet / And so are you”—and the high-tragic language of Racine. Rhyme ...

ByM/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images (spider), VladSt/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images (background) It’s one of the most famous nursery rhymes, one many will remember from their own childhoods: ...

Sonnets are a form of poem that was much loved by William Shakespeare. This one might be his most famous: Sonnet 18. 'Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?' asks Shakespeare. A sonnet is usually ...

London librarian Chris Roberts fills Debbie Elliott in on the three men in the tub as a series on the real meaning of nursery rhymes continues. Roberts is the author of Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The ...

Welcome to Part Two of our exploration and celebration of the use of rhyme in songs. The issue raised in Part One, whether songs require rhyme, and, if so, if they need to be perfect rhymes or not, is ...

When sounds match up at the end of a line It’s called ‘end rhyme’ and sounds mighty fine So who wins the battle? And the prize of a rattle? Let’s call it a draw? Okay, that’s fine. When words have ...

The nursery rhyme “Frère Jacques,” also known as “Brother Jacques” or “Brother John” in English, tells the tale of a monk who is being summoned to ring the bells, which he seems not to have done yet ...

For Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher, poetry was simply writing that “fails” to reach the end of the line. For W.H. Auden, a poet, poetry was that which “makes nothing happen”. Arnold Bennett, a writer, ...