All About Alliteration Already!

Alliteration is a technique in which you repeat the first consonant of words in succession, such as:

• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
• She sells seashells down by the seashore

This technique is popular in poetry and song writing, used by Shakespeare and Pink Floyd alike. Here’s how Shakespeare ends Sonnet 8, which opens with the words Music to hear:

Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: “Thou single will prove none.”

Notice the repetition of the letter “s” throughout these two lines. As you might expect, this is just one form of alliteration. When the repetition is of a vowel sound it’s known as assonance, and when it’s of a consonant sound it’s known as consonance.

Here are some typical examples of the use of assonant alliteration (vowel sound repetition):

• That solitude which suits abstruser musings – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• on a proud round cloud in white high night – from if a Cheer Rules Elephant Angel Child Should Sit by e.e. cummings
• Floating down, the sound resounds around the icy waters underground – Pink Floyd

When consonance is used, consonants can appear anywhere in the word as long as they help to move the rhythm along. Here’s a fantastic example from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe:

• And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Notice how the “c” in the word uncertain becomes part of the effect, sounding as it does just like an “s”.

Here’s another good example, this time the opening of The Death of a Hired Man by Robert Frost:

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren.

You’ll find instances of alliteration littering literature old and new, good and bad. It’s in poetry and song lyrics, and half of the fun is in finding it:

• Whisper words of wisdom, let it be. (The Beatles, Let It Be)

Likewise, you need only think back to the nursery rhymes you learned when you were younger, such as:

Goosey goosey gander,
Whither shall I wander?

Wilfred Owen made frequent use of alliteration in his war poetry. Here’s an example from his poem The Sentry:

Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he’d get all right.

This is a complex example, with lots going on. The repetition of the letter “l” is almost magical in lighting up the poem, so to speak.

And that’s what alliteration can do: it can light up an otherwise dull, monotonous bit of writing and transform it into a perfect piece of poetry or prose.

Take the trouble to test the theory out next time you write something.