Having read all these contradicting definitions and being confused, I am tempted to ask what actually 'alliteration' is. Verse, as in around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran' The beginning of each word or each stressed syllable in a line of Vowel, not necessarily the same vowel ( vocalic alliteration), at 'the use of the same consonant ( consonantal alliteration) or of a The much-quoted line of Charles Churchill AptĪlliteration's artful aid is not as good an example ofĪlliteration as it looks, since only the first two a's haveįowler seems to accept the repetition of even Vowel letters/sounds as alliteration, when he says that the first two a's of 'Apt alliteration's artful aid' have the same value.Ĭollins Dictionary defines 'alliterations' as: A fter li fe's fit ful fever In a summer season when soft was 'The purposive use in a phrase or sentence of words beginning with The repetition of end or medial consonants, as in 'stroke' and 'luck.'Īlliteration. The repetition of stressed vowel sounds within two or more words withĭifferent end consonants, as in 'stony' and 'holy' and consonance, The City's voice it self is soft like Solitude'sĪs a poetic device, alliteration is often discussed with assonance, Percy Bysshe Shelley's 'Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples': Syllables within words are repeated, as in the following line from When I do count the clock that tells the timeĪ more complex pattern of alliteration can be created when consonantsīoth at the beginning of words and at the beginning of stressed Sounds, as in this line from William Shakespeare's 'Sonnet XII': Non-initial stressed, or accented, syllables is also common: 'appearĪnd report.' Alliteration is a common feature in poetry, but it isĪlso found in songs and raps and speeches and other kinds of writing,Īs well as in frequently used phrases, such as 'pretty as a picture'Īlliteration can in its simplest form reinforce one or two consonant Initial, sounds-as in 'seven sisters'-but repetition of sounds in The repeated sounds are usually the first, or In alliteration, consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or Neighboring words or syllables (such as wild and woolly, The repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more Merriam Webster Dictionary defines 'alliteration' and explains further as: So the phrase not knotty is alliterative,

Important point to remember here is that alliteration does not depend

The same first consonant sound, occur close together in a series. 'It is a stylistic device in which a number of words, having The website ' Literary Devices' () defines I have come across contrasting definitions of alliteration in different dictionaries, grammars and on websites.

Repetition of vowel sounds within words