Tag: repetition

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A Pinch of Poetry

Consonance: The Sound of Poetry II

How you create sound in your poetry will make it bloom or wilt. The whole purpose of a poem is to artistically express a message in a succinct, powerful way. Sound devices, such as consonance, add musical qualities—key elements that accomplish this.

Since we’ve recently explored alliteration, it would be best to distinguish its sibling, which also makes use of repeating consonant sounds.

[bctt tweet=”How you create sound in your poetry will make it bloom or wilt. #poets #poetry”]

Closer than a Brother

Consonance is a sound device in which many of the words in close proximity (in the same line) repeat the same consonant sound. Remember that alliteration is unique because it only emphasizes the first sounds of words. Consonance allows for the sound to be repeated anywhere within the words or phrases.

As with alliteration, consonance adds a musical element to the poem and creates a smooth-flowing rhythm.

Let’s look at a few more lines from Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem “The Raven” again to understand how it works.

“And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain”

In the above lines, the poet repeats the “s” sound even in the words that don’t begin with that letter. The resulting sounds harmonize, creating a musical effect. Not only are the sounds repeated throughout the line, but the word “uncertain” also rhymes with “curtain.” Both devices create a beautiful streak of sounds that easily roll off your tongue.

A few stanzas later, he uses consonance again.

“Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted”

Poe could have chosen any number of words to communicate the same meaning. However, each word has a purpose. Notice how and where the “d” sound is repeated—the beginning, middle and ends of several words in this line. Again, the sound repetition enhances the rhythm of the poem.

It simply sounds nice. Doesn’t it?

Working Together

Because alliteration and consonance are so closely related, the poet uses both at the same time. But don’t fret over which technique you are using to create pleasant sounds in your poems. If you are aware of the devices, then you can consciously incorporate them into your work.

Remember that all poetic techniques usually work together rather than in isolation to create the most effective poems. You probably recognized other sound devices in those lines, such the internal rhyme. We’ll explore other musical elements like this in future posts.

Now that you have a grasp on alliteration and consonance, see if you can work it into your own poems. If you have any questions, ask me below.

[bctt tweet=”Create a beautiful streak of sounds in your poetry! #poets #poetry”]

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Write Justified

If I’ve Said It Once…

To paraphrase that wise king Solomon, “There’s a time and place for everything.” For writers, that includes repetition, despite the oft-heard advice to avoid needless repetition. Just to be clear, there’s a difference between repetition and redundancy. Redundancy is needless repetition; it serves no point. [bctt tweet=”Repetition, well placed and appropriately used, provides emphasis, creates emotion, strengthens your writing and makes it memorable.”]

Several literary devices employ a specific type of repetition. Although their names may not be familiar to you (they weren’t to me), it’s quite possible you’ve encountered the technique in your reading and probably used it in your writing.

Anadiplosis is Latin for “repetition of an initial word.” Repeating the last word of a clause or phrase near the beginning of the next is anadiplosis. These verses from the apostle Peter’s second letter illustrate:

“……… you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love” (II Peter 1:5 – 7).

The repetition emphasizes and reinforces the writer’s point. In this case, Peter is showing how these spiritual disciplines are connected. It’s not possible to produce one fruit of the Spirit without the others following.

And for a less sublime, but equally effective use of anadiplosis, you need look no further than DirectTV’s 2012 ad touting the disastrous results for those who opt out of their cable TV service:

“When your cable company keeps you on hold, you get angry. When you get angry, you go blow off steam. When you go blow off steam, accidents happen. When accidents happen, you get an eye patch. When you get an eye patch, people think you’re tough. When people think you’re tough, people want to see how tough. And when people want to see how tough, you wake up in a roadside ditch. Don’t wake up in a roadside ditch: Get rid of cable and upgrade to DIRECTV”

Anaphora, a literary device with roots in the psalms, is the repetition of the first word or words in a series of successive phrases. This device is useful for building to a climax and achieving an emotional effect. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is an example of accomplishing just that. One classical scholar has compared anaphora to “a series of hammer blows in which the repetition of the word both connects and reinforces the successive thoughts.”

Sara Thebarge uses anaphora effectively in a recent blog about working in a missionary hospital in Africa.

“I cried because my heart aches for the families who lost their loved ones.  I cried because I’m spent — I don’t feel well, and after being up on my feet working all day, I feel even worse.  I cried because so much has gone into building and running this hospital, and yet some days, it doesn’t seem to matter.”

Notice how repeating “I cried” becomes so much more than a physical act, but reveals Sara’s heart.

Antistrophe (also called epistrophe) is the exact opposite of anaphora. Here the repetition occurs at the end of each successive clause, phrase, or sentence.

If you’ve ever been called to witness at a trial you’ve recited an antistrophe when you promised “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” This may be a case where having heard that oath so often it no longer carries the weight it once did. But repeating a word or series of words at the end of a construction is good way to emphasize a point. It also has the effect making a statement more memorable.

Abraham Lincoln, a great rhetorician as well as revered president, used both anaphora and antistrophe effectively in the Gettysburg Address.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground.

And

…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

It bears repeating, well-placed, well-used repetition is persuasive. Like any good thing, overdone it loses its impact.

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Uncategorized Write Justified

To Join or Not to Join – That’s the Rhetorical Device

Last month I introduced the concept of rhetorical devices. We started with a couple familiar devices that students of English would know if they’d been paying attention in school—metaphor, simile, and analogy. So much for the basics. Let’s explore a few literary tools whose names are far less well known, but that you’ve likely seen or used. You probably just didn’t know they had a specific name or function.Death_to_stock_photography_weekend_work (10 of 10)

Asyndeton

You may spot the technique in these sentences:

·         We came, we saw, we conquered.

·         The fair goers spent the day eating, walking, resting, riding, laughing.

·         God is relentless, personal, intensely private.

You probably notice that none of these sentences uses a conjunction (joiner) in a series of words or phrases. That’s asyndeton—omitting the conjunction in series to give a particular effect.[bctt tweet=” …asyndeton … steps up the pacing or rhythm and gives the sentence a punch, a more precise and concise meaning. #writer #writerslife”] It helps to convey a sense of spontaneity, immediacy, incompleteness.

Notice how leaving out the conjunction and in the third sentence, God is relentless, personal, intensely private, gives the feeling that the sentence is not complete, that there is more to God than these three attributes—a wholly appropriate feeling when writing about God.

Asyndeton comes from Latin and Greek, syndeton meaning connected; the prefix a renders it unconnected or without conjunctions. An asyndeton can be used in a series of words, phrases or sentences, or between sentences and clauses.

Conversely, polysyndeton is the repetition of a conjunction. While it is structurally the opposite of asyndeton it has a similar effect of multiplying, growing energy, and building up.

·         Armed with diapers and bottles and formula and blankets, the new parents left the hospital.

You get the sense that these folks are embarking on a monumental task, don’t you?

Polysyndeton is most effective when used with three or four elements. Notice the strength piling on the ands gives to Spencer Tracy’s pro-evolution argument in the 1960 movie, Inherit the Wind:

“Can’t you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding.”

[bctt tweet=”Both asyndenton and polysyndeton are useful tools in giving greater power to your words, establishing a rhythm that creates a feeling of rising action, giving the impression there’s more that could be said. #authors #writing”] But leave it to a truly inspired writer to skillfully shift from polysyndeton to asyndeton.

Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him (Isaiah 24:1-2 KJV).