Out of the rhyme fog

Comic and cosmic rhymes in Danish poetry

A rhyming fog hangs over Danish poetry.

Only a few have dealt with rhyme in Danish poetry. Therefore, there is a lack of clarity about the peculiar nature of rhyme and its poetic potentials. Many have believed that rhyme is just a limiting, sonorous straitjacket, but the truth is that rhyme can be a fertile poetic material that single-handedly forces, manipulates and reinterprets meaning and creates beautiful poetry.

In this book, Niklas Ilsted Smith tries to clear up the rhyming fog by focusing on the poetic potential of rhyme, and by revealing that two poetic rhyming tracks run through Danish poetry – one comic and one cosmic.

The traces are followed up through the literary history of the poets Jens Baggesen, HC Andersen, Tom Kristensen, Thorkild Bjørnvig, Dan Turèll and in the hip-hop concept Rap Slam Battles.

The book is of course full of rhymes. In Turèll's words:

Leaf and see
Leaf and lee
Here will fall
rhyme like snow