Sound

Objective

What defines poetry even more than its form is how it sounds. The way a poem marches from line to line or how onomatopoeia can bring a subject to life is what makes a piece poetic. In this section, we will look at the elements of sound in poetry.

Elements of Sound

Rhythm is all around us. It is in the beating of our hearts; it is in the music we listen to; it is in the tapping of a pencil as we sit pondering things. Rhythm has the effect of making emotions palpable. For this reason, rhythm is employed in dance, music, and poetry. So what exactly is rhythm? It is the repetition of accents and beats. Rhythm in poetry is established by stressed and unstressed syllables and the length of lines.

Rhyme is the matching end sounds of words. For words to rhyme, their vowel sounds and ending consonants must sound the same or must be very close (as in near rhyme). From a young age, we are led to believe that all poetry must rhyme. But breaking the chains of a rhyme scheme sometimes results in a great work of poetry.

Sound Devices

Aside from the basic sound structure of poems, poets include several sound devices in their poetry to deepen the meaning of the work. Following are some of the most important sound devices in poetry.

Alliteration comes from the Latin and means “letters next to each other.” Alliteration is achieved when successive words or stressed syllables begin with the same letter or consonant sound. This stylistic device is commonly used in poetry and prose and adds a certain quality of richness to rhyming lines. See if you can find the alliterative phrases in the following passage taken from Beowulf.

Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,
leader beloved, and long he ruled
in fame with all folk, since his father had gone
away from the world, till awoke an heir,
haughty Healfdene, who held through life,
sage and sturdy, the Scyldings glad.

Two sound devices that are similar to alliteration are consonance and assonance.

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds anywhere in a line or stanza. See the following quotation from Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. Notice which sound is repeated and the overall effect it has on the passage.

“They will not move till I order them. Stay you sssso!” Kaa hissed, and the city was silent once more. . . .

So this is the manling,” said Kaa. “Very soft is his skin, and he is not so unlike the Bandar-log.”

The s sound is repeated throughout the lines. The effect is to make the snake’s words sound like the hissing of a real snake.

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in lines and stanzas without rhyme. Assonance has a soothing effect. Consider the first four lines of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Sonnet. Look for the nonrhyming long i sound in each line.

When I do count the clock that tells the time

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;

Poe uses alliteration, consonance, and assonance to heighten the sense of madness in his poem “The Bells.” Read the next few stanzas and see if you can find examples of all three of these sound devices. Reading it aloud will help you hear the sounds. Remember, they are easy to confuse. What is important is that you recognize that Poe is playing with sound for a specific effect.

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now–now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells.

Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

Below are a few lines and how they may be labeled as assonance, consonance and alliteration.

“The Bells” is an example of alliteration almost gone awry but, remember with Poe, there is always a method to his madness! He uses all the sound devices to build a sense of impending death and insanity.

Another sound device is onomatopoeia. This is a word or group of words that imitate the object being described. Words like buzz and hiss are obvious examples. Less obvious though no less effective ones can be found in the following lines taken from Lord Alfred Tennyson’s “Come Down, O Maid:”

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

While these lines contain consonance, the consonance serves as onomatopoeia. We can almost hear the murmur of the bees in this last line.

Finally, poets often use repetition to convey emotion in their poems. Repetition might also be used to change the meaning of a word or idea. Read Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” and take note of his use of repetition.

Those woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

When Frost repeats the last line, he intends the reader to see beyond the literal meaning of needing to go a distance before going to sleep. The repetition forces the reader to look to a figurative as opposed to a literal meaning of the word sleep.

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