Rhyme, Alliteration & Assonance

Poetry Potion | February 19th, 2012 | Writer's Block | No Comments

Sound plays an important role in creating meaning in poetry. one way to use sound is the employ repetition through rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance.

according to Wikipedia, rhyme consists of identical (“hard-rhyme”) or similar (“soft-rhyme”) sounds placed at the ends of lines or at predictable locations within lines (“internal rhyme”)

“Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me” ~ Shakespeare, from As You Like It

Alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words or phrases. Alliteration is about the sound, not the letter.

She sells seashells on the seashore”

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences,

“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain!” ~ from My Fair Lady

Consonance is a poetic device characterized by the repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession, as in

pitter patter” or in “all mammals named Sam are clammy”

In next months APADC, all submissions must use rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance.

source: en.wikipedia.org

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