Alliteration in English Literature

“Full fathom five, thy father lies.”

In this line by Shakespeare, the consonant “f” sound is repeated several times and this is an example of alliteration. So we can say that alliteration is the repetition of the letter or syllables or the same sound at the beginning of the two or more words in a line. In this way language becomes musical. The definition of alliteration can be referred also in different manners. According to Abrams, it happens when the recurrent sound occurs in a conspicuous position; at the beginning of a word or of a stressed syllable within a word. Again it is said that alliteration may happen at the beginning of nearby words or in the middle or even at the end of words provided stressed syllables. The use of alliteration makes the importance of literary significance in more intensified degree. This figure of speech is more frequent in writing poetry. By using alliteration a writer presents his sense of elegance in regard of his literary understanding. It shows and employment of mastery by the writer. For examples:

a) The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew

The furrow followed free. (Coleridge)

b) Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux. (Pope)

c) With beaded bubbles winking at the brim. (Keats)

d) Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone, on a wide, wide sea! (Coleridge)

Couplet/ Heroic Couplet in English Literature

A couplet consists of two lines of poetry next to each other. These lines rhyme together and usually have the same metre. A closed couplet is one which is grammatically complete and has a meaning complete within itself. Let’s take the following lines from Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”.

“Favors to none, to all she smiles extends;

Oft she rejects, but never once offends.”

Here, the last word of the first line and the last word of the second line have similar sounds “ends”. These lines are iambic pentameter lines. However, the couplet may be in all forms of meter. However, heroic couplets are such kind of couplets of iambic pentameter which rhyme in pair such as: aa, bb, cc, and so on. For example:

“But when/ to mis/ chief mor/ tals bend/ their will

How soon/ they find/ fit ins/ truments/ of il:”

Each of these lines consists of five iambic feet. In other words, each line consists of five pair of syllables and in each pair the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed. Such five feet arranged in a verse line are called iambic pentameter. When two such iambic pentameter lines end with similar sounds as in these lines, they are called heroic couplet. Pope and Dryden are masters of this.

The following lines from Pope’s “Essay on Criticism” are also a good example of couplet:

“True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.”