Research on lesser known literary elements & devices of sound
Cacophony & Euphony:
Cacophony: harsh joining of sounds; disagreeable or harsh sound produced by the collision of two letters or syllables or
by the frequent repetition of the same letters or syllables (like excessive alliteration.)
*We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked will. W. Churchill
Poets combine harsh sounds for effect such as:
Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves
And barren chasms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels-Tennyson, “The Passing of Arthur,” in Idylls of the King
Or Robert Browning's ‘Caliban upon Setebos’:
And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,
And, with a fish‐tooth, scratched a moon on each,
And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,
And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a‐top.
Adjectives: cacophonous or cacaphonic.
euphony [yoo‐fŏni], a pleasing smoothness of sound, perceived by the ease with which the words can be spoken in
combination. The use of long vowels, liquid consonants (l, r), and semi‐vowels (w, y), contributes to euphony, along with
the avoidance of adjacent stresses; the meaning of the words, however, has an important effect too. Euphony is the
opposite of cacophony.
adjective: euphonious or euphonic.
Harmony or beauty of sound which provides a pleasing effect to the ear, usually sought-for in poetry for effect. It is
achieved not only by the selection of individual word
EUPHONY. A pleasant, harmonious quality in SPEECH . The perception of such a quality is partly physiological (soft,
flowing, blending sounds are generally considered pleasanter than harsh, jangling, discordant sounds) and partly
cultural (people tend to like sounds that they have been led to like). In English, euphony is often associated with long
vowels, the semi-vowels or glides /j, w/, and the consonants /l, m, n, r/. All of these occur in the opening verse of
Gray's ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard’ (1751):The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to ...
‘Euphony,’ meaning soothing, pleasant words. In most cases, poetry is euphonic as it is pleasing to read or listen to, and
the most famous euphonic phrase is “cellar door,” which is considered to be the most beautiful phrase in the English
language. To achieve euphony, many writers typically use alliteration, assonance, and rhyming.
Consonance & Assonance:
Consonance is a stylistic device, often used in poetry characterized by the repetition of two or more consonants using
different vowels, for example, the "i" and "a" followed by the "tter" sound in "pitter patter." It repeats the consonant
sounds but not vowel sounds. This is not to be confused with assonance, which is the repetition of only vowel sounds.
Alliteration differs from consonance insofar as alliteration requires the repeated consonant sound to be at the beginning of
each word, while in consonance the repeated sounds can occur anywhere within the word, although often at the end. In
half rhyme, the terminal consonant sound is repeated.
A special species of consonance is using a series of sibilant sounds (/s/ and /sh/ for example); this is sometimes known
simply as sibilance. Several examples of sibilance come from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." For example: "And the silken
sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain" (note that this example also contains assonance around the "ur" sound).
Another example of consonance is the word 'sibilance' itself.
Further examples of consonance can be found in Hip-hop music. For example in the song Zealots by the popular group the
Fugees: 'Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile/Whether jew or gentile I rank top percentile.'
It is important to recognize the difference between alliteration and consonance. Consonance is the repetition of consonant
sounds within the words, while alliteration is the repetition of beginning consonant sounds. They are similar, but
produce a different effect, and are interpreted into two completely different things in poetic analysis. For example, the
sentence "Few flocked to the fight" is considered to display alliteration, because the only repetition occurs in the "f"
sounds at the beginnings of the words. On the other hand, "All mammals named Sam are clammy" shows consonance, as
the repeating consonant sound "m" is found within the words.
Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences. For example, in the
phrase "Do you like blue?", the "oo" (ou/ue) sound is repeated within the sentence and is assonant.
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Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. - William Wordsworth, "The world is too much with us"
Hear the mellow wedding bells. — Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bells"
The crumbling thunder of seas — Robert Louis Stevenson
That solitude which suits abstruser musings - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
on a proud round cloud in a white high night - e.e. cummings
In more modern verse, stressed assonance has become the main literary device in modern rap starting with gangsta rap
like 2Pac in the 1990s, departing from rap's foundations in the 80's rapper like Slick Rick when rhyme at the end of each
line was the cornerstone of poetic expression. An example is Public Enemy's 'Don't Believe The Hype': "Their pens and
pads I snatch 'cause I've had it / I'm not an addict, fiending for static / I see their tape recorder and I grab it / No,
you can't have it back, silly rabbit".
Parallelism & Oxymoron:
Parallelism might be defined as the statement of a concept immediately followed by a repeated treatment of the concept,
either by similarity or by contrast. This effect is frequently achieved by repetition of word, phrase or sentence. A modern
example of parallelism is found in President John F. Kennedy’s famous lines:
Ask not what your country can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your country.
The successive repetition of word and phrase builds tension, energy and drama.
Parallelism is a common element of early, oral traditions, because ancient poems were read aloud or sung, and the use of
repetition allowed largely illiterate audiences to absorb the stories and messages of the poems by ear. The repetition also
served to make the poems more lyrical and more readily remembered.
The great masters of poetry have always resorted to word repetition to create lyrical effects. Consider the following:
Dante in the Purgatorio (Canto XXXIII, l. 18):
(When with her eyes, my eyes she struck)
Shakespeare in the sonnets (Sonnet 20, ll. 6-7):
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope
Yeats in the poem, “The Folly of Being Comforted”:
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs
piercingly in Greek words how there is no crime . . . piercing in Greek words . . . how there is no death. . .
In grammar, parallelism is a balance of two or more similar words, phrases, or clauses. The application of parallelism in
sentence construction improves writing style and readability. Parallelism may also be known as parallel structure or
parallel construction. In English, parallelism of the predicate provides for one of the few structural situations in which the
subject for each verb does not need restatement. Parallelism is often achieved in conjunction with other stylistic
principles, such as antithesis, anaphora, asyndeton, climax, epistrophe, and symploce.[1]
Compare the following examples:
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Lacking parallelism: She likes cooking, jogging, and to read.
Parallel: She likes cooking, jogging, and reading.
In the above example, the first sentence has two gerunds and one infinitive. To make it parallel, the sentence was rewritten
with three gerunds instead.
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Lacking parallelism: Affy ran across the yard, jumped over the fence, and down the alley he sprinted.
Parallel: Affy ran across the yard, jumped over the fence, and sprinted down the alley.
Parallelism is recurrent syntactical similarity. Several parts of a sentence or several sentences are expressed similarly to
show that the ideas in the parts or sentences are equal in importance. Parallelism also adds balance and rhythm and, most
importantly, clarity to the sentence.
Any sentence elements can be paralleled, any number of times (though, of course, excess quickly becomes ridiculous). You
might choose parallel subjects with parallel modifiers attached to them:
Ferocious dragons breathing fire and wicked sorcerers casting their spells do their harm by night in the forest of Darkness.
Or parallel verbs and adverbs:
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I have always sought but seldom obtained a parking space near the door.
Or parallel verbs and direct objects:
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He liked to eat watermelon and to avoid grapefruit.
Or just the objects:
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This wealthy car collector owns three pastel Cadillacs, two gold Rolls Royces, and ten assorted Mercedes.
Or parallel prepositional phrases:
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He found it difficult to vote for an ideal truth but against his own self interest.
The pilot walked down the aisle, through the door, and into the cockpit, singing "Up, Up, and Away."
Notice how paralleling rather long subordinate clauses helps you to hold the whole sentence clearly in your head:
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When, at the conclusion of a prolonged episode of agonizing thought, you decide to buy this car; when, after a
hundred frantic sessions of begging stonefaced bankers for the money, you can obtain sufficient funds; and when,
after two more years of impatience and frustration, you finally get a driver's license, then come see me and we will
talk about a deal.
Here are some other examples of parallelism:
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I shall never envy the honors which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the
writers who have given ardor to virtue, and confidence to truth. --Samuel Johnson
They had great skill in optics, and had instructed him to see faults in others, and beauties in himself, that could be
discovered by nobody else. . . . --Alexander Pope
For the end of a theoretical science is truth, but the end of a practical science is performance. --Aristotle
Oxymoron combines two normally contradictory terms. Oxymoron is a loanword from Greek oxy ("sharp" or "pointed")
and moros ("dull"). Thus the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron.
Oxymorons are a proper subset of the expressions called contradictions in terms. What distinguishes oxymorons from
other paradoxes and contradictions is that they are used intentionally, for rhetorical effect, and the contradiction is only
apparent, as the combination of terms provides a novel expression of some concept, such as "cruel to be kind" or "team of
mavericks".
Oxymorons can also be wooden irons in that they are in violation of the Principle of contradiction which asserts that
nothing can be thought if it contains contradictory characteristics, predicates, attributes, or qualities.
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Richard Lederer assembled oxymorons in an article in Word Ways in 1990 such as "pianoforte" (literally, "soft-loud".) In
general, oxymorons can be divided into expression that were deliberately crafted to be contradictory, and those phrases
that inadvertently or incidentally contain a contradiction (often as a result of a punning use of one or both words).
Slang terms might be combined with oxymoronic effect; for example "hot ice" implies stolen diamonds in criminal argot,
"hot" referring to stolen goods, and "ice" referring to diamonds.
Some examples of deliberate oxymorons include:
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Deafening silence
Forward retreat
Accidentally on Purpose[2]
Little Big Man
Oxymorons are most tellingly employed in injecting a sense of ironic, ostensibly unintended, humor.
Popular oxymorons: In popular usage, the term oxymoron is sometimes used more loosely, in the sense of a simple
contradiction in terms. Often, it is then applied to expressions which, unlike real oxymorons, are used in full
earnest and without any sense of paradox by many speakers in everyday language. Comedian George Carlin brought
many of these to popular attention in his album "Toledo Window Box", in his live comedy routines, and his books.
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Start Stopping
Same difference
Nondairy creamer
Pretty Ugly
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Ill health
Plastic glass
Jumbo Shrimp
Quick Stop
Alliteration is the repeated occurrence of the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words in the same
phrase. An example is the Mother Goose tongue-twister, "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers …". usually used as
a form of figurative language
Alliteration survives most obviously in modern English in article titles, comic strip or cartoon characters, and common
expressions:
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Magazine or Newspaper articles: “Science has Spoiled my Supper”[7], “Too Much Talent in Tennessee?”[8], and
"Kurdish Control of Kirkuk Creates a Powder Keg in Iraq" [9]
Comic/cartoon characters: Beetle Bailey, Donald Duck, Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, Clark Kent
Restaurants: Coffee Corner, Sushi Station
Expressions: busy as a bee, dead as a doornail, good as gold, right as rain, etc...