SOUND DEVICES USED IN POETRY
A List of Definitions
Sound devices are resources used by poets to convey
and reinforce the meaning or experience of poetry through the skillful use of
sound. After all, poets are trying to
use a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to create an emotional
response. The words and their order
should evoke images, and the words themselves have sounds, which can reinforce
or otherwise clarify those images. All
in all, the poet is trying to get you, the reader, to sense a particular thing,
and the use of sound devices are some of the poet’s tools.
- ACCENT
The rhythmically significant
stress
in the articulation of words, giving some
syllables
more relative prominence than others. In words of two or more syllables, one
syllable is almost invariably stressed more strongly than the other syllables.
Words of one syllable may be either stressed or unstressed, depending on the
context in which they are used, but connective one-syllable words like,
and, but, or, to, etc., are generally
unstressed. The words in a line of poetry are usually arranged so the accents
occur at regular intervals, with the
meter
defined by the placement of the accents within the
foot.
Accent should not be construed as
emphasis.
Sidelight: Two degrees of accent are natural to many
multisyllabic English words, designated as primary
and secondary.
Sidelight: When a syllable is accented, it tends to be
raised in pitch and lengthened. Any or a combination of stress/pitch/length can
be a metrical accent.
Sidelight: When the full accent falls on a vowel, as in
PO-tion, that vowel is called a long vowel; when it falls on an
articulation or consonant, as in POR-tion,
the preceding vowel is a short vowel.
2. ALLITERATION
Also called
head
rhyme or
initial rhyme, the
repetition of the initial sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in
neighboring words or at short intervals within a line or passage, usually at
word beginnings, as in "wild and woolly" or the line from the poem,
Darkness Lost:
From somewhere far beyond, the flag of fate's caprice
unfurled,
Sidelight: The sounds of alliteration produce a
gratifying effect to the ear and can also serve as a subtle connection or
emphasis of key words in the line, but should not "call attention" to
themselves by strained usage.
3. 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, date
and fade.
4. CONSONANCE
A pleasing combination of sounds; sounds in agreement
with
tone. Also, the repetition of the same end
consonants of words such as
boat and
night within or at the end of a line, or
the words,
cool and
soul, as used by Emily Dickinson in the
third stanza of
He Fumbles at your Spirit.
CACOPHONY (cack-AH-fun-ee)
Discordant sounds in the jarring juxtaposition of
harsh letters or syllables, sometimes inadvertent, but often deliberately used
in poetry for effect, as in the opening line of
Fences:
Crawling, sprawling, breaching spokes of stone,
Sidelight:
Sound
devices are important to poetic effects; to create sounds appropriate to
the
content, the poet may sometimes prefer to
achieve a cacophonous effect instead of the more commonly sought-for
euphony. The use of words with the consonants
b, k and
p, for example, produce harsher sounds than the soft
f and
v or the liquid
l, m and
n.
DISSONANCE
A mingling or union of harsh, inharmonious sounds that
are grating to the ear.
EUPHONY (YOO-fuh-nee)
Harmony or beauty of sound that provides a pleasing
effect to the ear, usually sought-for in poetry for effect. It is achieved not
only by the selection of individual word-sounds, but also by their relationship
in the repetition, proximity, and flow of sound patterns.
Sidelight: Vowel sounds are generally more pleasing to
the ear than the consonants, so a line with a higher ratio of vowel sounds will
produce a more agreeable effect; also, the long vowels in words like moon and fate are more melodious than the short vowels in cat and bed.
INTERNAL RHYME
Also called
middle
rhyme, a
rhyme occurring
within the line, as in the poem,
The Matador:
His childhood fraught with
lessons taught by want and misery
METER
A measure of rhythmic quantity, the organized
succession of groups of
syllables at basically
regular intervals in a
line of poetry, according
to definite metrical patterns. In classic Greek and Latin
versification, meter depended on the way
long and short syllables were arranged to succeed one another, but in English
the distinction is between accented and unaccented syllables. The unit of meter
is the
foot. Metrical lines are named for the
constituent foot and for the number of feet in the line:
monometer (1), dimeter (2), trimeter (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter
(5), hexameter (6), heptameter (7) and
octameter
(8); thus, a line containing five
iambic feet,
for example, would be called
iambic pentameter. Rarely does a metrical line
exceed six feet.
Sidelight: In the composition of verse, poets sometimes
make deviations from the systematic metrical patterns. This is often desirable
because (1) variations will avoid the mechanical "te-dum, te-dum"
monotony of a too-regular rhythm and (2) changes in the metrical pattern are an
effective way to emphasize or reinforce meaning in the
content. These variations are introduced by
substituting different feet at places within a line. (Poets can also employ a
caesura, use
run-on
lines and vary the degrees of
accent by
skillful word selection to modify the rhythmic pattern, a process called
modulation. Accents heightened by semantic
emphasis also provide diversity.) A proficient
writer of poetry, therefore, is not a slave to the dictates of metrics, but
neither should the poet stray so far from the meter as to lose the musical
value or emotional potential of rhythmical repetition. Of course, in modern
free verse, meter has become either irregular
or non-existent.
MODULATION
In poetry, the harmonious use of language relative to
the variations of
stress and pitch.
Sidelight: Modulation is a process by which the stress
values of
accents can be increased or decreased
within a fixed
metrical pattern.
NEAR RHYME
Also called
slant
rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme or
half rhyme, a
rhyme
in which the sounds are similar, but not exact, as in
home and
come or
close and
lose.
Sidelight: Due to changes in pronunciation, some near
rhymes in modern English were
perfect rhymes
when they were originally written in old English.
ONOMATOPOEIA (ahn-uh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh)
Strictly speaking, the formation or use of words which
imitate sounds, like whispering, clang and sizzle, but the term is generally expanded to refer to any word
whose sound is suggestive of its meaning.
Sidelight: Because
sound
is an important part of poetry, the use of onomatopoeia is another subtle
weapon in the poet's arsenal for the transfer of sense impressions through
imagery.
Sidelight: Though impossible to prove, some
philologists (linguistic scientists) believe that all language originated
through the onomatopoeic formation of words.
PHONETIC SYMBOLISM
Sound suggestiveness; the association of particular
word-sounds with common areas of meaning so that other words of similar sounds
come to be associated with those meanings. It is also called sound symbolism.
Sidelight: An example of word sounds in English with a
common area of meaning is a group beginning with gl, all having reference to light, which include:gleam, glare, glitter, glimmer, glint,
glisten, glossy and glow.
RESONANCE
The quality of richness or variety of
sounds in poetic
texture,
as in Milton's
. . . and the
thunder . . . ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
RHYME
In the specific sense, a type of
echoing which utilizes a correspondence of sound in
the final accented vowels and all that follows of two or more words, but the
preceding consonant sounds must differ, as in the words,
bear and
care. In a
poetic sense, however,
rhyme refers
to a
close similarity of sound as
well as an
exact correspondence; it
includes the agreement of vowel sounds in
assonance
and the repetition of consonant sounds in
consonance
and
alliteration.
Differences as well as
identity
in sound echoes between words contribute to the
euphonic
effect, stimulate intellectual appreciation, provide a powerful mnemonic
device, and serve to unify a poem. Terms like
near
rhyme,
half rhyme, and
perfect rhyme function to distinguish
between the types of rhyme without prejudicial intent and should not be
interpreted as expressions of value. Usually, but not always, rhymes occur at
the ends of lines.
Sidelight: Originally rime, the spelling was changed due to the influence of its popular,
but erroneous, association with the Latin word, rhythmus. Many purists continue to use rime as the proper spelling of the word.
Sidelight: Early examples of English poetry used
alliterative verse instead of rhyme.
The use of rhyme in the end words of
verse
originally arose to compensate for the sometimes unsatisfactory quality of
rhythm within the lines; variations in the patterns
of
rhyme schemes then became functional in
defining diverse
stanza forms, such as,
ottava rima,
rhyme
royal,
terza rima, the
Spenserian stanza and others. Rhyme
schemes are also significant factors in the definitions of whole poems, such as
ballade,
limerick,
rondeau,
sonnet,
triolet and
villanelle.
RHYTHM
An essential of all poetry, the regular or progressive
pattern of recurrent
accents in the flow of a
poem as determined by the
arses and
theses of the metrical
feet,
i.e., the rise and fall of
stress. The measure
of rhythmic quantity is the
meter.
Sidelight: A rhythmic pattern in which the
stress falls on the final
syllable of each foot, as in the
iamb or
anapest, is
called a
rising or
ascending rhythm; a rhythmic pattern
with the stress occurring on the first syllable of each foot, as in the
dactyl or
trochee,
is a
falling or
descending rhythm.
Sidelight: From an easy lilt to the rough
cadence of a primitive chant, rhythm is the
organization of sound patterns the poet has created for pleasurable reading.
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