Definition and Examples of Alliteration in English

Definition and Examples of Alliteration in English Alliteration (also known as head rhyme, initial rhyme, or front rhyme) is a device in written and spoken languages in which a string of words and phrases repeats the same letter or letter combinations. Much of childrens poetry uses alliteration: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers is a memorable tongue-twister taught to English-speaking children. It is initially alliterative on the letter p- and internally repetitive on the letters p and ck. But it isnt the specific letter that makes a phrase alliterative, it is the sound: so you could say that the alliterative function of Peter and his peppers includes the p_k and p_p sounds. Meaning in Poetry Alliteration is probably most often used for humorous reasons, to elicit a giggle in children, but in skilled hands, it can mean quite a bit more. In The Bells American poet Edgar Allan Poe memorably used it to illustrate the emotional power of different types of bells: Hear the sledges with their bells- Silver bells!What a world of merriment their melody foretells!Hear the loud alarum bells- Brazen bells!What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! Songwriter Stephen Stills used a combination of hard and soft  c sounds and l sounds to illustrate the emotional disarray of a pair of lovers ending their relationship in Heartlessly Hoping. Notice that the c sounds are the conflicted narrator, and the l sound is that of his lady. Stand by the stairway youll see something certain to tell youConfusion has its costLove isnt lying its loose in a lady who lingersSaying she is lostAnd choking on hello In Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Mirandas tour-de-force Broadway musical, Aaron Burr sings: Constantly confusing, confounding the British henchmen  Ã‚  Everyone give it up for America’s favorite fighting Frenchman! But it can be quite a subtle tool as well. In the example below, poet Robert Frost uses w as a soft recollection of quiet winter days in Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening: He will not see me stopping hereto watch his woods fill up with snow The Science of Alliteration The repeating patterns of sound including alliteration have been tied to the retention of information, as a mnemonic device that helps people recall a phrase and its meaning. In a study conducted by linguists Frank Boers and Seth Lindstromberg, people who were learning English as a second language found it easier to retain the meaning of idiomatic phrases that included alliteration, such as from pillar to post and carbon copies and spic and span. Psycholinguistics studies such as that by P.E. Bryant and colleagues suggests that children with a sensitivity to rhyme and alliteration learn to read sooner and more rapidly than those who dont, even more than those measured against IQ or educational background. Latin and Other Languages Alliteration is used by writers of most Indo-European languages, including English, Old English, Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Sanskrit, and Icelandic. Alliteration was used by classical Roman prose writers, and occasionally in poetry. Most writing about the subject by the Roman themselves describes the use of alliteration in prose texts, especially in religious and legal formulas. There are some exceptions, such as the Roman poet Gnaeus Naevius:   libera lingua loquemur ludis LiberalibusWe shall speak with a free tongue at the festival of Liber. And Lucretius in De Rerum Natura uses it to full effect, with a repeated p sound that mimics the sound of mighty  ker-plunking splashes made by giants crossing vast oceans: Denique cur homines tantos natura pararenon potuit, pedibus qui pontum per vada possenteAnd why can’t nature make men so largethat they cross the depths of the sea with their feet Sources Blake, N.F. Rhythmical Alliteration. Modern Philology 67.2 (1969): 118-24. Print.Boers, Frank, and Seth Lindstromberg. Finding Ways to Make Phrase-Learning Feasible: The Mnemonic Effect of Alliteration. System 33.2 (2005): 225-38. Print.Bryant, P.E., et al. Rhyme and Alliteration, Phoneme Detection, and Learning to Read Developmental Psychology 26.3 (1990): 429-38. Print.Clarke, W. M. Intentional Alliteration in Vergil and Ovid.  Latomus  35.2 (1976): 276-300. Print.Duncan, Edwin. Metrical and Alliterative Relationships in Old English and Old Saxon Verse. Studies in Philology 91.1 (1994): 1-12. PrintLanger, Kenneth. Some Suggestive Uses of Alliteration in Sanskrit Court Poetry. Journal of the American Oriental Society 98.4 (1978): 438-45. Print.Lea, R. Brooke, et al. Sweet Silent Thought: Alliteration and Resonance in Poetry Comprehension. Psychological Science 19.7 (2008): 709-16. Print.