Alliteration

Alliteration is repeating the consonant sound in closely placed words and syllables.
Alliteration is used by poets to echo or repeat a sound. Here is an example of alliteration:

Twigs twist in the twilight light

The following poem, Betty Botter, contains examples of alliteration:

Betty Botter bought some butter

But she said the butter's bitter,
"If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter,
But a bit of better butter
Will make my batter better."

So she bought some better butter

Better than the bitter butter,
And she put it in her batter
And her batter was not bitter,
So 'twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit of better butter.

Question 1: Copy three lines from Betty Botter and highlight the alliteration

It will make my batter bitter,

But a bit of better butter
Will make my batter better."

Question 2: For these new products, compose a catchy phrase of about four or five words
that uses alliteration

a) lion liquorice

b) Crystal's cakes- Come and visit Crystal’s cakes!

c) Toobrite Toothpaste- Toobrite Toothpaste makes your teeth shiny!

d) Peter's Pies- The restaurant, Peter’s Pies is a peaceful place!

e) Susan's shoe shop- Susan’s shoe shop sells sandals!

Question 3: Why isn’t the phrase 'Alice's apples' an example of alliteration?

Vowel sounds are different!

Assonance
Assonance is repeating the vowel sounds close together It is used to create a musical effect
in a poem. Here is an example:

The stream quietly glides beneath

Green and deep

Notice how the ee sound is repeated in stream, beneath, green and deep.

Question 1: Copy the following lines and highlight the example of assonance:

a) I lie here and sigh for the lies that I've heard

b) We weep for daffodils in the spring

For they sleep too long and will not keep

c) Island of ice rises from the east,

Yet eyes do not sight it

d) And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs to sleep

Question 2: Compose one or two lines for each of the subjects below. In your lines, include
an example of assonance.

a) a bird singing in a tree sand extremely happily!

b) traffic

c) a lazy, sunny day we went to the bay, to search for the lost key!
Question 3: Copy the following extracts and identify examples of assonance:

a)

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—
And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon.

from Morte d'Arthur, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

b)

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rill

Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree

from Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

c) Some of the words that create assonance have been removed from the verses that follow.
Insert the following words to create the assonance

fire, bright, tiger, thine

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seizes the fire?

from The Tiger by William Blake

d)

arrows, wind, train, laden, pinched, slanting

Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white,

The travellers stand in pools of wintry light,
Offering themselves to morn’s long, slanting arrows
The train’s due; porters’ trundle laden barrows.
The train steams in, volleying resplendent clouds
Of sun-blown vapour.

From Morning Express, by Siegfried Sassoon