Sound Effects

Poetry: Sound Effects

Rhyme and Figures of Sound

What’s the point?

Many poets consciously control the sound effects

Many poets fiddle with it until it sounds right--but are using the sound effects when they do so.

You analyse the sound effects in order to explain interpretations or emphases.

Technical terms are a consistent way of talking about the effects.

Establishing an Underlying Sound Pattern

Much ancient and classical poetry used sound patterns based on the number of accented syllables in a line.

Japanese poetry uses the total number of syllables per line, with patterns for the number of syllables in each line.

Much poetry depends on numbers of sound units per line.

Much early poetry depended on alliteration.

Alliteration

Repetition of a consonant or consonant equivalent.

Mainly noticeable if the repetition is of an initial consonant and/or if there are several instances of the repetition.

Exact repetition is most noticeable, but voiced and unvoiced versions of the same sound also "count"

Alliteration

An alliterative effect can be created by a lot of consonants in close proximity which are close (a bunch of plosives, or a bunch of fricatives, or a bunch of liquids).

Alliteration is more noticeable if the alliteration begins a stressed syllable.

A brief linguistic pause

Voiced and unvoiced: if you arrange tongue, lips and palate the same way, but one time your vocal cords vibrate and one time they don’t, the vibrating version is voiced and the other is unvoiced.

Examples: v is voiced; f is unvoiced; b is voiced; p is unvoiced.

Consonants come in several types:

plosives (involve an "explosion" of air: p b d t th c/k g)

fricatives (involve vibration: f v)

aspirates (a breathing sound: h)

nasals (lips are closed; sound comes through nose: m, n)

silibants (like fricatives only the vibration is farther back and it’s more "breathy": j s sh z)

liquids (l r)

semi-vowels: w y

More on Alliteration

Alliteration can be used for sound effects (lots of silibants creates a hissing effect; lots of plosives sound hard, angry)

Alliteration can be used for establishing patterns within lines: if the middle of the line alliterates with the beginning or end, the line is divided into two parts.

Alliteration can suggest connections between lines.

Assonance

Just like alliteration only using vowels.

Again, it’s more noticeable the more exact it is and the oftener it happens.

It’s more noticeable if the syllables are stressed.

Unstressed "schwa" doesn’t really count as assonance.

Assonance is always more subtle than the equivalent alliteration.

Onomatopoeia

Words that sound like their meaning: hiss, bark, meow, clippety-clop, bang, etc.

More noticeable when "backed up" by alliteration or assonance (like alliteration using silibants along with "hiss": the hiss of the slithery snakes slowly sliding down slippery slopes)

Rhyme

Matching the ends of words with other ends of words.

Usually refers to matching the end of a word at the end of a line with the end of a word at the end of another line.

Rhyme is used to form patterns and units of lines, to show relationships between and among lines.

The most common kind of rhyme is end rhyme--the rhyme occurs at the ends of lines.

Less common rhyme is internal rhyme which usually means the middle of a line rhymes with the end of the same line, or with the end of the previous line.

Both end and internal rhyme have several variants:

Masculine vs. feminine: if the words that rhyme are one syllable or end with a rhyming stressed syllable that’s strong or masculine rhyme.

If the words that rhyme have several syllables and the stressed rhyming syllable isn’t the last, that’s weak or feminine rhyme

Examples:

The common Cormorant or Shag Lays eggs inside a paper bag/ The reason you will see no doubt/ Is to keep the lighting out.

They shipped these rapscallions, these sea-sick battalions/ To a patriotic and picturesque spot/ They gave them new bibles and marksmen’s medalions . . . ( p. 54)

Even more kinds of rhyme

	Eye rhyme: in poetry primarily intended to be read silently, words in a rhyming position that look like they would sound the same, even though they don’t, are eye rhyme.
	Slant rhyme: if the rhyme is close, but not exact, that’s slant rhyme (often a problem in older poetry if the words have changed so that they are no longer close.)

Talking about Rhyming Patterns

The first time a sound ends a line in a poem using rhyme, that line is marked "a"

The next time the same sound ends a line (close enough for the ear to remember) is "a" again.

The second sound is "b"; the third sound is "c" and so on.

Example

A little learning is a dangerous thing a

Drink deep or taste not the Perian spring a

For there, shallow draughts intoxicate the brain b

And drinking largely sobers us again. b

The rhyme pattern is aa bb so far. What would you expect next?

Technically part of structure but affecting rhyme

Caesura: a conceptual break in a line (usually in the middle of a line). Usually includes some sound reinforcement.

Enjambment vs. endstopped lines: sometimes the sense of a line ends at the end of the line (endstopped); sometimes the sense of a line flows into the next line (enjambment).

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