Here's another example of how the artistry displayed in the writing of Shakespeare's songs shows a great deal of overlap with the aesthetic theories of Stephen Sondheim, as presented in his 2010 book, Finishing the Hat: In the cleverly titled introductory section, "Rhyme and Its Reasons", he makes a case for the importance of rhyme in lyric writing, and a very specific type of rhyme, "true" or "perfect" rhyme, which he defines as: "two words or phrases whose final accented syllables sound alike except for the consonant sounds which precede them". He goes on to make a case against all of the types of rhyme that are known as "near" rhymes being used in writing songs for the theatre. He quotes another composer-lyricist, Craig Carnelia (best known for his work on the musicals, Working and Sweet Smell of Success), to summarize his case: "'True rhyming is a necessity in the theatre, as a guide for the ear to know what it has just heard. Our language is so complex and difficult, and there are so many similar words and sounds that mean different things, that it's confusing enough without using near rhymes that only acquaint the ear with a vowel... [A near rhyme is] not useful to the primary purpose of a lyric, which is to be heard, and it teaches the ear to not trust or to disregard a lyric, to not listen, to simply let the music wash over you.'"

Now, back to Shakespeare. In yesterday's post, I included Balthasar's song, from Much Ado About Nothing, as an example of another of Sondheim's principles: the importance of simplicity and clarity. But, amazingly, it works just as well as an example of the topic under discussion today. The song contains sixteen lines, with every one of them a part of a perfect rhyme.