Alliteration, Assonance and Consonance

• Poems often utilize many devices to be effective and successful.

• Three related terms referring to sound in poetry are alliteration, assonance, and consonance.

• These three terms are often confused for one another, or used in place of one another. Though they are related, they are quite different.

•Alliteration is the repetition of consonants within words in close proximity.• Alliteration generally refers to sounds at the start of a word. Here is an example from beowulf

feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,weox under wolcnum, weorþ-myndum þah

Alliteration

In the first line, the letter 'f' is used in repetition, and the same with 'w' in the second line.

Here is another example of alliteration from Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty”

• Glory be to God for dappled things...

Landscapes plotted and pieced—fold, fallow and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

• Find the alliteration???

• In this example the letter “g” is used in repetition in the first line, “p” and “f” in the second line, and “t” in the third line.

• Glory be to God for dappled things...

Landscapes plotted and pieced—fold, fallow and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.