Reimform

Reimform is a German term that corresponds to the English concept of rhyme scheme or rhyme form: the patterned arrangement of rhymes at the ends of lines in a poem. It is usually represented by assigning successive letters of the alphabet to distinct end sounds (a, b, c, etc.), so that lines sharing the same letter rhyme with each other.

Common Reimformen include the couplet (aa), alternate rhyme (abab), enclosed or envelope rhyme (abba), terza rima (aba bcb cdc ...), and the limerick pattern (aabba). Longer fixed forms such as the sonnet have characteristic rhyme schemes (Petrarchan: abba abba cdecde/ccddee; Shakespearean: abab cdcd efef gg). Reimform typically refers to end rhyme patterns, but related phenomena—internal rhyme, slant rhyme, eye rhyme—affect how rhyme is perceived and classified.

Study of Reimform is central to prosody and poetic analysis because rhyme patterns contribute to musicality, emphasis, and formal unity. Different languages and poetic traditions favor different Reimformen due to phonetic and morphological factors: for example, English allows for many monosyllabic rhymes, while Romance languages often use vowel-rich endings that shape preferred schemes.

In pedagogy and literary criticism, identifying a poem’s Reimform aids interpretation, comparison, and translation. While fixed schemes can impose formal constraints, many modern poets experiment with irregular or broken Reimformen to achieve particular effects.