Highlighting Rhyme in Les Miserables
Les Miserables. What’s not to like? I love how certain melodies are associated with specific characters, and how you hear them again and again. I also love how this powerful story is enhanced by its use of rhyme. Let’s take a look at some examples.
Prologue: Work Song
[VALJEAN]
I will pay in advance
I can sleep in a barn
You see how dark it is
I’m not some kind of dog!
There are no perfect rhymes in this stanza, but the assonance in barn/dark/not/dog is close enough to tickle our ears.
Prologue: What Have I Done
[THE BISHOP]
By the witness of the martyrs
By the Passion and the Blood
God has raised you out of darkness
I have bought your soul for God!
[JEAN VALJEAN]
One word from him and I’d be back
Beneath the lash, upon the rack
Instead he offers me my freedom
I feel my shame inside me like a knife
He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
What spirit comes to move my life?
Is there another way to go?
In what is maybe the pivotal scene in the movie, the rhyming is subtle as the Bishop drops some assonance with ‘bought/God’, and possibly ‘blood’, with a creative pronunciation. The rhyme scheme of the second stanza contains only three rhyming couplets (two perfect, one imperfect), but there are powerful lyrics contained in the AABCDDCD scheme.
At the End of the Day
[WORKERS]
At the end of the day there’s another day dawning
And the sun in the morning is waiting to rise
Like the waves crash on the sand
Like a storm that’ll break any second
There’s a hunger in the land
There’s a reckoning still to be reckoned and
There’s gonna be hell to pay
At the end of the day!
At the end of the day it’s another day over
With enough in your pocket to last for a week
Pay the landlord, pay the shop
Keep on grafting as long as you’re able
Keep on grafting till you drop
Or it’s back to the crumbs off the table
You’ve got to pay your way
At the end of the day!
Both these stanzas start out with long lines and you have to wait until the fifth line to hear a rhyme completed, but then the lines get shorter and the end rhymes pick up, which increases the tempo and the tension of the song.
I Dreamed a Dream
[FANTINE]
There was a time when men were kind,
And their voices were soft,
And their words inviting.
There was a time when love was blind,
And the world was a song,
And the song was exciting.
There was a time when it all went wrong…
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame.
He slept a summer by my side,
He filled my days with endless wonder…
He took my childhood in his stride,
But he was gone when autumn came!
And still I dream he’ll come to me,
That we will live the years together,
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather!
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living,
So different now from what it seemed…
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…
Rhymes in Les Miserables are fluid, changing to meet the needs of the story. In the first stanza here, note the rhymes between the first three lines and the next three (kind/blind, soft/song, inviting/exciting), the second stanza is a standard ABAB rhyme, while the third stanza (one of chaos and pain) has no end rhymes at all. After that, each stanza has more rhyme again (ABAC, ABAB, ABCC), with a rhyming couplet climaxing this mournful tune.
Lovely Ladies
[JAVERT]
I have heard such protestations
Every day for twenty years
Let’s have no more explanations
Save your breath and save your tears
`Honest work, just reward,
That’s the way to please the Lord.’
As a certified rhyme nerd, I have a favorite rhyme scheme, it’s ABABCC. Javert’s tune is very catchy, but even more so with this great rhyming stanza.
Castle on a Cloud
[YOUNG COSETTE]
There is a castle on a cloud,
I like to go there in my sleep,
Aren’t any floors for me to sweep,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
There is a room that’s full of toys,
There are a hundred boys and girls,
Nobody shouts or talks too loud,
Not in my castle on a cloud.
There is a lady all in white,
Holds me and sings a lullaby,
She’s nice to see and she’s soft to touch,
She says “Cosette, I love you very much.”
I know a place where no one’s lost
I know a place where no one cries
Crying at all is not allowed
Not in my castle on a cloud
Another ‘fluid rhyme’ song. The first stanza uses an identical rhyme to create a catchy ABBA first verse, the second stanza could have used ‘boys’ as an end rhyme to create an AABB scheme, but in a decision much-discussed by fellow rhyme nerds, the lyricist chose to keep ‘boys’ as an internal rhyme and end with ‘ girls’, forming an ABCC scheme. The third stanza uses a slant rhyme on the opening couplet to create an AABB scheme, while the final verse echoes the scheme of the second stanza, ending with a rhyming couplet, ABCC. Note: I like the partial eye rhyme in ‘all’ and ‘allowed’, and the consonance in ‘castle and cloud’.
Red and Black
[GRANTAIRE]
I’ve never heard him `ooh’ and `aah’
You talk of battles to be won
And here he comes like Don Ju-an
It’s better than an o-per-a!
This is a fun stanza, with some nice assonance (aah/won/Juan/opera). A very creative (some might say incorrect) pronunciation of the Spanish Juan allows ‘ooh’ to rhyme with ‘Ju’ and ‘aah’ to rhyme with ‘an’. Additionally, enunciating the three syllables in ‘o-per-a’, allows for a third similar rhyme.
A Little Fall of Rain
[EPONINE]
(Don’t you fret, M’sieur Marius)
I don’t feel any pain
A little fall of rain
Can hardly hurt me now
You’re here, that’s all I need to know
And you will keep me safe
And you will keep me close
And rain will make the flowers grow
These haunting, valiant, romantic lyrics start with some consonance (feel/fall, hardly/hurt) and use end rhyme (AABCACC) to enhance the emotion of the moment.
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