Topic 5 (session A) - Sound > Alliteration and Assonance Revisited > Task C > Our comments

Alliteration and Assonance Revisited

Task C - Our comments

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?
/wɒtpɑ:sɪŋbelzfəði:zhu:daɪəzkætl/

The only possible candidates here would seem to be the /p-b/ connection in 'passing bells' and the /z-s/ at the end of /belz/ and /ði:z/. Neither of these are strong candidates as they do not appear to carry significant interpretative connections.

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
/əʊnlɪðəmɒnstrəsæŋgərəvðəgʌnz/

There is /s/ alliteration within 'monstrous' which helps to underline the deviant semantic relation between it and 'anger of the guns'. There is also /g/ alliteration between 'anger' and 'guns', helping to bring out another deviant semantic relation. Guns cannot be angry as they are not human (though they can be fired in anger by a human being), and the feeling that the guns being fired is monstrous must be on the part of someone else looking on.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
/əʊnlɪðəstʌtrɪŋraɪflzræpɪdrætl/

Here the alliteration is much more dense. The /t/ alliteration in 'stuttering' and 'rattle' involves alveolar stop consonants, and so it is easy also to connect it with the /p/ (bilabial) and /d/ (alveolar) stops in 'rapid'. In addition, these three words and the word 'rifles' in the phrase 'the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle' are all connected by alliteration using the flapped approximant /r/, with three of the four words beginning with /r/. This alliterative intensity is, of course, connected with a well-known onomatopoeic effect. The line is usually said to imitate rifle fire. It is not just the consonants that are involved in this effect, however. First of all, there is assonance between the first syllables of 'rapid' and 'rattle', and secondly those two vowel sounds are short vowels, and all the vowels except one in 'the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle' are also short, helping further to mimic the noise of the guns. Onomatopoeia and related sound-symbolic effects are the subject of the next page in this topic.

In addition, the rhyme between 'cattle' and 'rattle' helps bring out the fact that line 3, as well as line 2, is an answer to the question of line 1. Lines 2 and 3 are parallel both phonetically (cf. the rhyme) and grammatically and have the elliptical grammatical structure associated with responses in conversation.

Can patter out their hasty orisons.
/kənpætəraʊtðeəheɪstɪɒrɪznz/

In spite of the spelling, there is no assonance between 'can' and 'patter' as the vowels are different phonemically. In any case, an alliterative effect between a grammatical word and a lexical word is almost certain not to be interpretatively significant. However, the alliterative effect using stop consonants in line 3 is continued in the onomatopoeic 'patter' in this line, and, because of the strength of the effect, may even include, ironically, the /t/ in 'hasty orisons'. The half-rhyme between 'guns' and 'orisons' underlines the ironic connection between the sounds of rifle fire and prayers for the dead.

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