One Problem We Face Comes From The

When We Study Shakespeare On The Page, For Academic Purposes, We May Require All Kinds Of Help. Generally, We Read Him In Modern Spelling And With Modern Punctuation, And With Notes. But Any Poetry That Is Performed - From Song Lyric To Tragic Speech - Must Make Its Point, As It Were, Without Reference Back.

Composers Need Words, But They Do Not Necessarily Need Poetry. The Russian Composer, Aleksandr Mossolov, Who Chose Texts From Newspaper Small Ads, Had A Good Point To Make. With Revolutionary Music, Any Text Can Be Set To Work.

A Glance At The History Of European Poetry Is Enough To Inform Us That Rhyme Itself Is Not Indispensable. Latin Poetry In The Classical Age Had No Use For It, And The Kind Of Latin Poetry That Does Rhyme - As For Instance The Medieval Carmina Burana - Tends To Be Somewhat Crude Stuff In Comparison With The Classical Verse That Doesn't.

Imitation, If It Is Not Forgery, Is A Fine Thing. It Stems From A Generous Impulse, And A Realistic Sense Of What Can And Cannot Be Done.

The Basic Rhymes In English Are Masculine, Which Is To Say That The Last Syllable Of The Line Is Stressed: "lane" Rhymes With "pain", But It Also Rhymes With "urbane" Since The Last Syllable Of "urbane" Is Stressed. "lane" Does Not Rhyme With "methane".