'Spoiled' and 'boil': a) half rhyme, b) assonance, or c) other?

[Mr Endon]

Greetings!

I have a terrible doubt.

Owen's lines read:

Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.

I'm trying to make a case for the aestheticisation of violence in Owen, and I want to say which sound devices he is employing for that effect.

Now one of them involves 'spoiled' and 'boil'. What relationship is there between the two?

First I thought of internal half rhyme, but that would require one to read 'spoiled' as a monosyllable, and I'm not sure this is the case.

But even if it is treated as being a monosyllable, I still think I'd best play safe and go with assonance. That's what I have right now.


But the doubt's killing me. What do you think it is? Many thanks in advance.

[JBI]

ironic slant-rhyming it is ironic since you expect a full rhyme, but because you aren't satisfied with the rhyme, it creates a sort of pun. The whole poem is in slant rhyme.

[Mr Endon]

First of all thanks for the dilligence. And indeed, you're right, the whole poem is in slant rhyme, I had not realised that! However I can't see why it's an ironic slant rhyme. Do you mean that it's ironic because even though the reader is meant to derive aesthetic pleasure from the poem their fruition is constantly frustrated by the fact that there's no full rhymes?

Another question: is "spoiled" read "spoil'd", then? I know that in Romantic poetry at least the poet could choose between "spoiled" or "spoilèd", but have no idea if nowadays you can still read it as having either one or two syllables?