Metrical Defect or Comic Effect? Consonant Rhymes in Lope de Vega's Dramatic Romances

Abstract

This article studies the presence of consonant rhymes in dramatic romances from Lope's autograph comedias. After examining ideas about this curious phenomenon among Golden Age poets and theorists, we focus on those romances that accumulate more consonant rhymes, in which they appear to be not mere oversights, but burlesque resources. This is suggested by the playful atmosphere of the fragments, by the protagonism they bestow upon the gracioso, and by the oxytonous rhymes, a trait already used at the end of the sixteenth century for parodic effect, as it happens with these romance consonant rhymes. In addition, we analyze other parallels among the aforesaid comedies (their date of composition, details about their writing and publication, the onomastic coincidences regarding the gracioso) that reinforce the feeling that, in those cases in which they are the most insistant, romance consonant rhymes are an intentional resource of Lope's. When they appear isolated, they may be due to mere oversight, a minor metrical defect in which Lope incurred less often than most of his contemporaries. In addition, we examine certain data pertinent to the frecuency and use of these rhymes as a tool to attribute comedies to Lope.