Sound & Meaning

In poetry the music quality of words is used to great effect. The purpose is not merely ornamental, but also meaningful. Sound & Sense explains that “Rhythm and sound cooperate to produce what we call the music of poetry. This music, as we have pointed out, may serve two general functions: it may be enjoyable in itself, or it may reinforce meaning and intensify communication” (p. 224). What is important for you is to be able to identify when and how sounds in a poem convey or reinforce meaning in the poem.

The musical quality of a poem is achieved “by the choice and arrangement of sounds and by the arrangement of accents” (p. 181).

Rhyme

When same-sounding (rhyming) vowels are placed in close proximity it is known as assonance. The repetition of initial consonant sounds is known as alliteration. When the consonants repeat at the end of syllables it is called consonance. “Rhyme,” explains Arp & Johnson “is the repetition of the accented vowel sound and any succeeding consonant sounds” (p. 183). Rhyming, therefore requires the repetition of both an accent vowel sound and a consonant sound. You can read more about assonance and alliteration here.

When the rhyme involves only a single syllable it is called masculine, for example “fat” and “cat.” If more than one syllable is involved, like “spitefully” and “delightfully,” it is known as feminine rhyme. You can learn more about masculine and feminine rhyme, as well as end rhyme and approximate (imperfect) rhyme here.

Rhythm

As already mentioned, an important part of the music in poetry is rhythm. Rhythm is concerned with the accents, or stresses, in words. In English, certain syllables in words usually gets stressed more during pronunciation than other syllables. For example we say WONderful, not wonderful, or wonderFUL. The arrangement of such stresses in poetic lines creates a rhythm, known as the lines “Meter.” The meter is made up of a number of feet – each foot is one basic rhythmical unit of syllables. Read more about rhythm and the different types of feet and meter here.

Onomatopoeia

An interesting musical device in poetry is onomatopoeia, which refers to a word that mimics the sound it describes. For example “cock-a-doodle-do” refers to the crow of a rooster, or “woof-woof” to the barking of a dog.

Phonetic Intensives

In many Western languages certain sounds seem to indicate similar ideas.

For example:

The initial fl sound depicts moving light, e.g. flame, flicker, flash. An initial gl sound depicts unmoving light: glow, gleam, glint, glare. Or the initial str sound refers to long lines: street, stream, stripe, streak. For more, see Arp & Johnson, p. 225 and 226.

Euphony & Cacophony

Some sounds are pleasing (euphonious) and other sounds are non-pleasing (cacophonous). A poet can use this to emphasize the meaning in a poem. For example in the poem “Spring and All” by William Carlos Williams, the dead plants are described with words that contain many strong (plosive) consonants: “brown with dried weeds,” “forked, upstanding, twiggy / stuff of bushes.” These cacophonic sounds give emphasis to ugliness of the dead plants. Generally long vowels are more euphonic than shorter vowels, and smooth sounding consonants, like the liquids (l, m, n, and r) and other soft consonants like v, f are more euphonic than the plosives (b, d, g, k, p, and t), which are usually more cacophonic.