The sound of words
One of the other forms of poets that can contribute to the meaning and influence of their vocabulary is by deliberate use of words for their sounds. For eg, they might use onomatopoeia-words that mimic sounds, such as "bang" or "rattle." In Edgar Allan Poe's (1809-49) following paragraphs, the words not only explain bell pealing but also provide a general sense of its sound:
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
Yet the ear it jully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
 |
In The Cry (I1895), Norwegian artist Edvard Munch used wave-like shapes to suggest echo-
-ing sound. Poets create such effects by using onomatopeia-words that imitate sounds. |
There is a more traditional way of using the words ' sounds in rhyme. When the words finish with the same sound (like "hair" and "fair"), they rhyme. A poet may use rhyme to add joy to his poetry and make it easier to remember. It was possibly originally implemented as a memorization and recitation aid. Rhyme will help to illustrate a theme, too. The reader is conscious of a trend and can at some stage assume a rhyme. The term will acquire an accent as it arrives. Notice the influence of the last word in these words, from the English poet Thomas Gray of the 18th century "Elegy in a Country Churchyard,":
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
 |
Eight proverbs in the form of rhyming couplets, illustrated by 16th-century Flemish
artist Pieter Brueghel. Rhyme gives such ideas emphasis and makes them easier to remember. |
The use of rhyme within single lines of poetry can add a pleasing balance and give the rhythm a stronger "swing," as in these lines from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834):
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow follow'd free.
 |
France's 12th-century epic The Song of Roland tells how Charlemagne's nephew Roland died
fighting against the Saracens. Here, he is seen as a 14th-century illustrator of the Grand Chron-
isles of France imagined him; as a battle rages, he binds a prisoner. The best-known version
of the poem is rhymed but owes its melody and majestic rhythms largely to assonance
derived from an earlier, unrhymed version. Unlike end, rhyme-the repetition of identical
sounds-assonance depends on the correspondence of vowel sounds, not consonants. |
Both the vocal sounds and the final consonant sounds are paired in rhyming terms like "hair" and "fair," Nevertheless, the technique called assonance is based on the use of identical sounds but not exactly overlapping. In Spanish poetry, assonance is especially important but it is used by poets from all countries to establish diversity.
Another way to align sounds is called alliteration (or "head rhyme"), where many words in a line begin with the same letter. For example, in the above quote from Coleridge, a few words begin with the letter f. Alliteration became the main technique used in early English and German poetry, before rhyme during the Middle Ages became popular. Yet its value was not overlooked by later poets-a value demonstrated in these lines by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-53):
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
 |
Part of an early manuscript of Beowulf (about A.D. 1000). In this epic (as in all Anglo-Saxon
poetry) the melodic effects are created by alliteration; in each line the poet uses several
words that begin with the same letter. |
By making the most important words stand out from the rest, alliteration can not only vary the sound of a poem but can (like rhyme) strengthen its meaning.
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon