Introduction

“She sells seashells by the sea shore” may be a tongue twister, but it is also an example of alliteration. Though the term itself may be unfamiliar to you, you’ve probably encountered many examples of this poetic technique in your day-to-day life. Advertisements, more tongue twisters, nursery rhymes, and, yes, even the chorus of Taylor Swift’s song “Bad Blood” use the technique. And of courses, like rhyme or rhythm, alliteration is a common feature of poetry.

It’s by no means required for a poem to use alliteration, though, so why do poets choose to repeat the first letter of a string of words? What does the technique do? It’s important to remember that each poet—and poem—uses alliteration to different ends. Alliteration may be challenging, humorous, or even ominous. The effect depends on the context of the poem. What is always true, though, is that alliteration announces itself sonically and visually. That is, you see the repeated letters and you hear them, too. In this way, the poet draws attention to those particular words.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the term used to describe successive words beginning with the same sound – usually, then, with the same letter.

To illustrate this, we’ll use a stanza from Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem, ‘Natura naturans’. There is not enough space to quote the whole poem, but to give you some idea of the context of this stanza so that you can more fully appreciate what Clough is doing, it is worth explaining that ‘Natura naturans’ describes the sexual tension between a young man and woman who sit next to each other in a railway carriage. They have not been introduced, and they neither speak nor exchange so much as a glance. The subject matter and its treatment is unusual and also extraordinarily frank for the time of writing (about 1849), but you need to know what is being described in order to appreciate the physicality of the lines I quote.

Read the attached stanza from Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem, ‘Natura naturans’ and consider the following questions.
(a) What is the single most striking technique used, and what are the effects?
(b) How would you describe the imagery, and what does it contribute to the overall effect?
Click ‘View document’ below to view Arthur Hugh Clough’s poem, ‘Natura naturans’.

View Document
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Discussion

(a) Visually the use of alliteration is striking, particularly in the first line and almost equally so in the second. If you took the advice above about paying attention to the physical business of articulating the words too, you should be in a good position to discriminate between the rapidity of the flies and the heavier movement of the bees, and to notice how tactile the language is. The effect is actually to create sensuality in the stanza.
(b) Notice that though we begin with flies, bees and rooks, all of which are fairly common flying creatures, we move to the more romantic lark with its ‘wild’ song, and then to the positively exotic gazelle, leopard, and dolphin. From the rather homely English air (flies, bees, birds), we move to foreign locations ‘Libyan dell’ and ‘Indian glade’, and from there to ‘tropic seas’. (Cod in the North Sea would have very different connotations from dolphins in the tropics.) Air, earth, and sea are all invoked to help express the variety of changing highly charged erotic feelings that the speaker remembers. The images are playful and preposterous, joyfully expressing the familiar poetic subject of sexual attraction and arousal in a way that makes it strange and new. Notice that in each case the image is more effective because the alliteration emphasizes it.

Introduction to Literature. Licensed under CC BY SA 4.0 https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-introliterature/chapter/approaching-poetry/

Summary

Alliteration, like rhyme and rhythm, is a literary technique commonly used by poets. Remember that alliteration simply involves a phrase or sentence or sequence of words that repeat a specific first letter. These words do not necessarily need to be adjacent. For example, the sentence “Paul purchased plenty of peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes” is still alliterative, even though “of” separates “plenty” from peppers” and “tomatoes, and” separates “peppers” from “potatoes.” The “P” is still repeated.

Like onomatopoeia and assonance, the other literary techniques introduced in this resource, alliteration allows a poet to create emphasis. The cause for that emphasis depends on the context of the poem. Still, being able to identify alliteration is a good way to become a more capable reader—and enjoyer—of poetry.