Can Rhyme Consistency Score be used as a Feature in Stylistics? A Statistical Endeavour with Hindi Poetry

Stylistics is the study and analysis of linguistic style using the tools of language. It is an investigation of language elements employed in a spoken or written piece under examination. Rhyme is one such element that can help to inspect style in an artistic piece of writing. It is a literary device that adds melody and aesthetics to any poetic composition. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the authors’ skill in employing this literary trick will reveal something about their personality in their work. The rhyming quality of a poem has been proven to be a feature in studying literary pieces in the state-of-the-art work that analyzes Doha composition using rhyme quality. However, the consistency of rhyme quality throughout a writer's work makes more sense when thinking from a stylistic viewpoint. This article focuses on studying and analyzing poetry to identify the similarities and differences across writers’ styles while utilizing the extent of rhyme consistency as the key feature. The research examines the works of five prominent Hindi poets, namely Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Jayshankar Prasad, Sumitranandan Pant, Mahadevi Verma, and Harivansh Rai Bachchan, while using their poems as its case study. It provides the rhyme consistency score as a novel stylistic function verified using relevant statistical tests. In the process of achieving the preceding, this article contributes a structured dataset, ARCSet, and well-posed style conclusions about the five renowned authors of Hindi literature.