Sound Devices/Effects

Alliteration: It is also called head rhyme or initial rhyme. It is the repetition of the same sound usually at the beginning of words of the same line. Consider this stanza from William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 30:When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past.I sight the lack of many a thing I sought.And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.

Consonance: the repetition of the same consonant sounds at the end of stressed syllables, but with different vowel sounds, within or at the end of a line. Consider this poem by Emily DickinsonT’ was later when the summer wentThan when the cricket came,And yet we knew that gentle clockMeant nought but going home.

T’ was sooner when the cricket wentThan when the winter came,Yet that pathetic pendulumKeeps esoteric time. -

Assonance: the relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants in a line or passage, thus a vowel rhyme, as in the words, “same day.” N.B. Assonance does not occur simply by having the same vowel spelling, eg. lost and most. Consider this poem by William Wordsworth: She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

Cacophony: In Greek, it means an ugly, unpleasant sound. Cacophony refers to discordant and harsh sounding effects that are usually produced by clusters of consonants arranged so as to make pronunciation difficult. Consider Hart Crane’s poem “The Bridge” (1930), which uses cacophony to communicate the chaos and evil in the industrial world:

The nasal whine of power whips a new universe….Where spouting pillars spoor the evening sky,Under the looming stacks of the gigantic power houseStars prick the eyes with sharp ammoniac proverbs,New verities, new inklings in the velvet hummedOf dynamos, where hearing’s leash is strummed….Power’s script, - wound, bobbin-bound, refined-Is stopped to the slap of belts on booming spools, spurredInto the bulging bouillon, harnessed jelly of the stars.

Additionally, the following passage from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) shows the chaotic and destructive effects of war:

And being no stranger to the art of war, I have him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea-fights…

Onomatopoeia: In Greek, onomatopoeia means 'name making.' Onomatopoeia refers to words which imitate the natural sound they produce. In other words, onomatopoeia refers to words which sound like the noise they describe (such as murmur, bang, sizzle, etc.). consider this extract from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bellls:”Hear the sledges with the bells —Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,In the icy air of night!While the stars that over sprinkleAll the heavens, seem to twinkleWith a crystalline delight;Keeping time, time, time,In a sort of Runic rhyme,To the tintinnabulation that so musically wellsFrom the bells, bells, bells, bells,Bells, bells, bells —From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells…