Alliteration

“ Hence every line forms a unity by itself, and the chief pause falls at the end, not, as was frequently the case in Old English times, after the caesura.
§ 54. Alliteration. On the whole, the same laws regarding the position of the alliterative sounds are still in force as before; it is indeed remarkable that they are sometimes even more strictly observed. ”

“ Alliteration, which is nearly allied to rhyme, is another of the helps whereof the proverb largely avails itself. Alliteration was at one time an important element in our early English versification; it almost promised to contend with rhyme itself, which should be the most important; and perhaps, if some great master in the art had arisen, might have retained a far greater hold on English poetry than it now possesses. ”

“ For apt alliteration’s artful aid,”—
an example which is itself a proof of his failure; for alliteration is never effective unless it runs upon consonants. As thus far considered, alliteration is a device wholly dependent on the poet's fancy. He may use it or not, or use it much or little, at his pleasure. But there is an extensive range of Teutonic poetry whose metrical laws are entirely based on alliteration. ”

“ In no case is an unaccented syllable or even a syllable with a secondary accent allowed to take part in the alliteration. This fact, that secondarily accented syllables are debarred from alliterating, is another proof that it is better to look on them as belonging to the thesis rather than to the arsis of the verse.
The Principles of Alliteration.
§ 33. Quality of the Alliteration. It is an all but invariable rule that the correspondence of sounds must be exact and not merely approximate. A g must alliterate to a g, not to a c, a d to a d, not to a t, and so on. ”

“ No metric distinction is made between long and short syllables in the thesis.
6. Alliteration (initial rime, consisting in the agreement of the initial sounds of words or syllables) is employed to unite the two half-lines into the larger rhythmic unit of the complete line. Alliteration is restricted to syllables in the arsis (and marks the most emphatic of these) ; any additional alliteration that may occur in the thesis is to be regarded as accidental and therefore without significance in the structure of the line. ”

“ Sound is made subservient to sense.
When, from the lack of alliteration, the student is in doubt as to what word to stress, let him first get the exact meaning of the line, and then put the emphasis on the word or words that seem to bear the chief burden of the poet’s thought.
Note 1.—A few lines, rare or abnormal in their alliteration or lack of alliteration, may here be noted. In the texts to be read, there is one line with no alliteration: Wanderer 58; three of the type a ··· b | a ··· b: Beowulf 654, 830, 2746 ”

“ Feminine or double rimes are very common. Thus, in HF. 531-546, we have eight such rimes in succession.
§ 118. Alliteration. As our oldest poetry was alliterative, alliteration has always been considered a permissible, and indeed a favourite, ornament of English verse. I shall only remark here that Chaucer affords excellent examples of it, and employs it with much skill. One well-known passage in the Knightes Tale (A 2601-16) has often been admired on this account. It is needless to cite more examples. The reader may consult the dissertation on 'The Alliteration of Chaucer,' by C.F. M‘Clumpha ”

“ But here the alliteration is as true to nature as it is artistically effective. For it is known that violent emotion irresistibly compels us to heap together similar sounds. Several subtle and probably unconscious instances of it are given by Peile from the Idyllic poets; but as a rule it is true of Greek as it is of English, French, and Italian poetry, that when metre, caesura, or rhyme, hold sway, alliteration plays an altogether subordinate part. It is otherwise in Latin poetry. ”

“ The first, or at least the most thorough, example of alliteration is that we find elaborated in the earliest Scandinavian poetry, where it supplies the fundamental basis, whereas assonance and the terminal rhyme, albeit these two aspects play a by no means unimportant part, are, however, only present in certain particular kinds of such poetry. The principle of alliterative rhyme, letter rhyme, is rhyme in its most incomplete form, because it does not require the recurrence of the entire syllable, but only that of one identical letter, and primarily the initial letter only. ”

“ In the literary history of all nations, we find languages affected by various peculiarities. Of these several, more or less connected with punning, have, at different periods, prevailed in English, viz. Alliteration, Rhyme, Euphuism, &c. Alliteration was the principle on which the Anglo-Saxon poets founded their versification. This has been called ‘head-rhyme,’ as distinguished from end-rhyme, which is a more modern practice. ”

“ In the case of single alliteration, it is always the first of the nouns or adjectives which alliterates.
The verb (excluding the infinitive and participles) is usually less strongly accented than the noun. It may therefore precede or follow the noun or adjective without alliteration, either in the arsis or thesis, as
lḗt se héarda Hígelāces þégn.Beow. ”

“ The slow, sad sound pervades the land—one calls to another, and he sighs to his neighbor, and the Nile is shored with sound no less than sand.’
Alliteration is a mark of youth. Employed to excess it has a cloying effect, like that of diminished sevenths in music. ”

“ On the alliteration of the poem
§ 24. I note here a few peculiarities of alliteration. [14] Perhaps the most remarkable is the run upon vowels, which is also a marked feature of the Alexander A-fragment; see'll.22, 27, 230, 240, 268, 290, 415, 461, 498, 500, &c. of that text. So here, we find an alliteration of different vowels in'll. 3, 15, 24, 157, 251, 338, 343, 345, 440, 442, 468, 506, 526, 568, 718, 720, 754, 812, 851, 936, 975, &c. We also find alliteration of the same vowel in many instances. Ex: a, a, a ”

“ Alliteration is a natural and obvious method of emphasis in English—and often difficult to avoid rather than to obtain. Popular sayings—wind and weather, time and tide, kith and kin, ever and aye, to have and to hold—are fond of it for its own sake. ”

“ The principle governing the use of alliteration and rhyme appear to be much the same. In unsophisticated days an audience could be moved by the profuse straight-ahead alliteration of Piers Plowman, but this is too obvious a device for our times. The best effects seem to have been attained in more recent poetry by precisely (if unconsciously) gauging the memory length of a reader’s mental ear and planting the second alliterative word at a point where the memory of the first is just beginning to blurr ”

“ For example, two alliterative syllables often appear in the second half-line; one half-line may be without alliteration; alliteration may bind different long-lines together; or alliteration may be altogether wanting. There are also additions of many light syllables, resulting almost, as Schipper observes, in rhythmical prose. These tendencies resulted in the wholly irregular use of alliteration appearing in much of the verse of the early Middle English period, illustrated in the specimens that follow. ”

“ Alliterative Phrases A love of alliteration and rhyme in phrase and compound has always been characteristic of English as a whole. We tend naturally to say weary and worn, or sad and sorrowful, and we cling to compounds like helter-skelter and pell-mell. We even begin the education of our babies by teaching them to call a dog a bow-wow, and a horse a gee-gee. It is not, therefore, surprising to find this prevalence still more marked in the dialects, where all normal tendencies have fuller sway than in the standard language. ”

“ The alliterative measure seems therefore to have grown upon him. He tends also to multiply the alliterating words without need, at times using double alliteration in the same line (e.g. x. 1) . He also uses the refrain (ii.) ”

“ But you must remember that old English poetry was not like ours. It did not have rhyming words at the end of the lines.
Anglo-Saxon poetry depended for its pleasantness to the ear, not on rhyme as does ours, but on accent and alliteration. Alliteration means the repeating of a letter. Accent means that you rest longer on some syllables, and say them louder than others. ”

“ Alliteration at the beginning of accented syllables is very useful in humorous verse, helping along the rhythm and binding the lines together.
The use of onomatopoetic words, words whose sound signifies the sense, is so common that we seldom give it a thought. ”

“ It is impossible to read the earlier Latin poets, or even Virgil, without seeing that they abound in repetitions of the same letter or sound, either intentionally introduced or unconsciously presenting themselves owing to constant habit. Alliteration and assonance are the natural ornaments of poetry in a rude age. In Anglo-Saxon literature alliteration is one of the chief ways of distinguishing poetry from prose. ”

“ The practice of many first-rate writers, however, both ancient and modern, who have thought that alliteration adorned their compositions, entitles it to attention. Although eminent critics have argued against this literary ornament, that its success is but a trivial excellence, I cannot but remark that it is allowed on all sides that great labour, care, and patience, are requisite, to succeed in alliteration ”

“ The diction of poetry is governed by different laws, and the reduplication of sound is a recognized and not infrequent ornament of verse used to a degree which would not be tolerated in prose. In the latter it is important that alliteration shall appear to be rather the consequence of the subject than an extraneous ornament. Once a writer introduces into prose a word which is evidently or even apparently chosen for its initial, he has given the reader a suspicion of artificiality which is fatal to the best effect. ”

“ A person quite illiterate 'wouldn't know a B from a bull's foot.' The catching point here is partly alliteration, and partly that a bull's foot has some resemblance to a B.
Another expression for an illiterate man:—He wouldn't know a C from a chest of drawers—where there is a weak alliteration. ”

“ The difference, however, between the first and second hemistich is less conspicuous than it was in those forms of the Middle English alliterative line before mentioned. Alliteration, on the other hand, is abundantly used.
The main rhythmic character of the verse is again indicated here by the frequent occurrence of the types A and A1. The types B C, B C1, C, C1, however, likewise occur pretty often, and the two last types present serious obstacles to the assumption that the lines of these poems were ever recited with an even beat. ”

“ Whenever we hear a run of words rhyming alliteratively in H, it is highly probable that only half the pleasure we experience is conveyed to us by ear, and that the other half is of a subjective nature, and arises from our knowing the letter H to enter into the formation of the words, and the alliteration would be almost lost to us were we ignorant of their orthography. ”

“ It is probable that these lines have never been translated into English verse, and it is obvious that no translation, which did not largely consist of paraphrase, would be possible.
Alliteration, which is a powerful literary instrument in the hands of a skilful writer, but which may easily be allowed to degenerate into a mere jingle, is of less common occurrence in Greek than in English, notably early English, literature. ”

“ All the alliterative poetry of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is found written in these long lines, with the dot of division in the middle. In the fifteenth century the meaning of this dot appears to have been forgotten, and the system of alliteration so far misunderstood, that the writers thought it only necessary to have at least three alliterative words in a long line, without any consideration of their position in the line. ”

“ Guthhere there gave me a goodly jewel
the g’s form the alliteration. The third accent sets the alliteration for the line and is known as the “rime-giver.” With it agree the first and the second accent, or either of them. The fourth accent must not, however, agree with the rime-giver. Occasionally the first and third accents will alliterate together and the second and fourth, as,
The weary in heart against Wyrd has no help;
or the first and fourth may have the alliteration on one letter, while the second and third have it on another, as,
Then heavier grows the grief of his heart. ”

“ The use of final rhyme becomes constant, and consequently alliteration, although remnants of it still are noticeable even in short lines connected together, becomes more and more scarce. [103]
The unaccented syllables are interposed between the accented ones with greater regularity; and among the unaccented syllables the one (or, in some sub-species of the verse, more than one) which is relatively stronger than the rest receives full metrical stress, or at least nearly approaches the fully-stressed syllables in rhythmical value. ”

“ Good rhyme has necessarily varied, at different times, with pronunciation; but a certain rough rule may be seen prevailing not uncommonly, that vowels in rhyme may take the value which they have in words other than those actually employed. [29]
Alliteration.
35. What is sometimes called "head-rhyme" (i.e. "alliteration") has now no place in English as rhyme at all, nor does it constitute either metre or stanza; but it [Pg 35] is a permissible, and often a very considerable, ornament to verse. ”