The art of the fault in mixed rhymes, from Banville to Verlaine (1846–1873) Ratages rimiques de Banville à Verlaine (1846-1873)

The first two well-known French poems that systematically pair rhymes with a “masculine” and “feminine” ending are Banville’s “Élégie” (1846) and Verlaine’s sixth “ariette oubliée” (toward the end of 1872). Traditional prosodic terminology encourages us to look for a gendered symbolism in this, but the sought-after effect in the two texts relies on the fact that the expected rhyme is echoed but “imperfectly” (off by a single “e”).