American Literature / Unit 1 AML 0014 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Lettering a Rhyme Scheme
The idea
A rhyme scheme is written as letters, and the exam uses that notation without explaining it. The method has three steps. Step one: read to the end of the first line and give its last sound the letter a. Step two: read each following line and ask whether its last sound matches one already lettered; if it does, reuse that letter, and if it does not, give it the next letter unused. Step three: write the letters in order and look at the shape. A ballad quatrain rhyming only its second and fourth lines comes out as a b c b, which the glossary gives as the ballad's usual scheme. A couplet comes out a a. An English sonnet comes out a b a b c d c d e f e f g g.
In practice
First sound is a; every new sound takes the next letter.
Where people slip
Letter the sound, not the spelling, so eye rhymes take different letters. And unrhymed lines in a rhymed poem take a letter of their own rather than being skipped, which is how a reader spots the one line left deliberately loose.
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