ABSTRACT
In his admirable study of Geoffrey Chaucer’s rhymes Michio Masui lists seven tendencies distinguishable in the way in which the poet builds up the ends of his lines. Franz Beschorner also made some interesting observations concerning the chronology of Chaucer’s works in the light of his verbal rhyming and his use of “gin.” Beschorner, referring to the elementary fact that in linguistic communication the advancing element is normally conveyed by the verb, believes that the reason for placing a verb at the end of the line is a desire to add to the vividne and concreteness of the narrative. The tendency to favour verbs as rhyme words is obviously a rather general phenomenon and is not limited to medieval poetry. John C. Pope uses relatively fewer infinitives in rhyme than Chaucer does; otherwise there is little difference. The most obvious reason for the relative popularity of the infinitive form as a rhyme word is its syntactical flexibility.
