Let's consider what alliteration is

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

There are many literary and linguistic terms, the meaning of which is not fully known to us. Therefore, in this article we will try to figure out what alliteration is, where it can be found, what makes it interesting. For many readers, it will be a discovery that this phenomenon occurs in our lives more than often. Often lines with alliteration are composed on the go by those people who have a penchant for poetry.

Different interpretations of the term

So, alliteration is a kind of consonance, which is formed due to the repetition of identical or similar-sounding consonants used at the beginning of a word. Speaking more broadly about what alliteration is, it can be noted that this is a canonized literary device, which, although based on a combination of similar sounds, has nothing to do with rhyme. If we consider the interpretation of this term even easier, then alliteration has a distant resemblance to rhyme. However, in this case, consonances will take place not at the end of each line, but at its beginning.

Several examples

To understand what alliteration is, it is enough to plunge into the world of folk sayings and sayings. It is in those short lines that, as it were, teach us how to live correctly, this mysterious literary term is very clearly spelled out. As an example, you can recite the proverb "Schi and porridge is our food." Here we see both alliteration, which is at the beginning of the first words, and rhyme, which makes this saying even more melodic. The words “You can’t hide an awl in a bag”, “Easier than a steamed turnip” and others can also serve as a similar example.

The most beautiful world of poetry

Also to understand what alliteration is, poems of famous Russian poets will help us. Surprisingly, the leaders in using this technique in practice were the most famous geniuses of the Golden Age - Pushkin and Lermontov. Mikhail Yuryevich, for example, owned the following words: “I don’t expect anything from life. And I do not feel sorry for the past at all. Well, Pushkin's famous verse with the words “A sad time! Oh charm! I am pleased with your parting beauty,”is an example of this canonical technique that everyone hears.

Past and present alliteration

Poems with alliteration can be found in A. Blok, as well as in some other poets of the Silver Age. A similar literary device takes place in the oldest Russian chronicle work - "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", in the verses of Nekrasov,Severyanin and Mayakovsky. Often in such works, alliteration alternates with rhyme, due to which the poem is perceived by the ear as something non-standard, unexpected, very interesting.

Perception of this technique

It is generally believed that of all the devices in literature, alliteration is best determined by ear. Examples of such sound combinations were presented above, so you can, by reading them again, catch that the sound connection between spoken words can only be noticed if you hear them. On the letter, it is impossible to catch these consonances. Perhaps that is why alliteration has taken root so firmly in oral folk art.