[George Simmers]

But he's annoying when he says Auden wrote “Letter to Lord Byron” (1937) in a variant of the ottava rima of Byron’s “Don Juan.” Not so. He wrote it in Rime Royal, a much older stanza form, introduced into English by Chaucer.

[John Isbell]

He also attributes to Ruskin the ideas that rough and ready art spoke to authenticity and a striving alien to Classicism. Fair enough, but these ideas had been common currency throughout much of Europe, the UK and Germany to begin with, for a half-century by then. Adam Gopnik writes on a wide variety of topics, as is only natural in journalism.

Cheers,
John

[Kevin Rainbow]

Originally Posted by George Simmers

But he's annoying when he says Auden wrote “Letter to Lord Byron” (1937) in a variant of the ottava rima of Byron’s “Don Juan.” Not so. He wrote it in Rime Royal, a much older stanza form, introduced into English by Chaucer.

I don't think Rime Royal is an older stanza form.

https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/r/rime_royal.html

RIME ROYAL, the name given to a strophe or stanza-form, which is of Italian extraction, but is almost exclusively identified with English poetry from the fourteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. It appears to be formed out of the stanza called Ottava rima, by the omission of the fifth line, which reduces it to seven lines of three rhymes, arranged ababbcc.

[John Isbell]

Rime royal is about a generation younger - the gap from Boccaccio to Chaucer. It is, however, far older than Byron, which I assume is George’s point.

Cheers,
John

[Yves S L]

Gwynn, Thanks for the article. I got some names to explore.

If anyone got suggestions for more formal masters of the slant rhyme, then that would also be cool.

[R. S. Gwynn]

W. S. Gilbert was probably the most adroit rhymester of them all, especially with his use of triple-rhymes. In many of his "patter songs" the music is subordinate to the lyrics, and ev-e-ry syllable is pronounced.

[Yves S L]

Gwynn, thanks!