Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of words in a sentence. It is an old literary device used by Germans and Anglo-Saxons, and is used throughout the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. Alliteration is commonly used in advertising and teaching children.
Alliteration is the repetition of the same consonant at the beginning of multiple words in a sentence. In Latin, alliteration means “putting words together”. It is an old literary device used by Germans and Anglo-Saxons, and many Anglo-Saxon writers considered it more important than the use of rhyme. Alliteration is used throughout the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. Although alliteration has been featured in many famous works of literature for hundreds of years, it was not until the 15th century that Pontanus is credited with inventing the term.
This might seem like a simple enough literary device, but several rules must be applied before a sentence contains alliteration. In each word, the first sound or first stressed syllable must be identical. The letters used in the word are not taken into account. Therefore, “city” and “cure” in a sentence would not be alliterated, but the words “city” and “safe” would.
Each word must also come in direct succession to each other, or with only a few words separating them. Some examples are “Sally has seen seashells” and “good children get lots of grapes”. A minimum of two words must meet these requirements.
In general, only initial consonant words are considered alliteration. The repetition of initial vowels in words tends to be distinguished from alliteration and labeled as assonance. For example, “Ignacio built igloos in Italy” is considered assonance. Often, alliteration is mistakenly confused or used interchangeably with consonance, which is the repetition of similar sounds in the middle or at the end of multiple words, such as “hit a thick streak.”
Alliteration is commonly used because it is pleasing to the ear and memorable. For this reason it is widely used in advertising and teaching children. Many brands make use of this literary device to make the name stick in a person’s mind. It is also used in many nursery rhymes and poems for children as a tool to teach them about sounds and to differentiate between the many sounds each letter has. Many children’s poems and stories use alliteration to captivate children and make them more interested in the written word.
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