Consonance is a stylistic literary device identified by the repetition of identical or similar

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

in neighboring words whose

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

sounds are different (e.g. coming home, hot foot). Consonance may be regarded as the counterpart to the vowel-sound repetition known as

assonance Assonance is a resemblance in the sounds of words/syllables either between their vowels (e.g., ''meat, bean'') or between their consonants (e.g., ''keep, cape''). However, assonance between consonants is generally called ''consonance'' in America ...

Alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

is a special case of consonance where the repeated consonant sound is at the stressed syllable,Alliteration - The Free Dictionary
as in "few flocked to the fight" or "around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran". Alliteration is usually distinguished from other types of consonance in poetic analysis, and has different uses and effects. Another special case of consonance is sibilance, the use of several

sibilant sound Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...

s such as and . An example is the verse from

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

's "

The Raven "The Raven" is a narrative poem by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a distraught lover who is paid a myste ...

": "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain." (This example also contains

around the "ur" sound.) Another example of consonance is the word "sibilance" itself. Consonance is an element of

half-rhyme Perfect rhyme—also called full rhyme, exact rhyme, or true rhyme—is a form of rhyme between two words or phrases, satisfying the following conditions: *The stressed vowel sound in both words must be identical, as well as any subsequent s ...

poetic format, sometimes called "slant rhyme". It is common in hip-hop music, as for example in the song ''Zealots'' by the

Fugees Fugees (; sometimes The Fugees) is an American hip hop group formed in the early 1990s. Deriving its name from a shortening of the word "refugees", the group consists of Wyclef Jean, Pras Michel, and Lauryn Hill. The group rose to fame with i ...

: "Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile/Whether Jew or gentile I rank top percentile." (This is also an example of

internal rhyme In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines. By contrast, rhyme between line endings is known as end rhyme. Internal rhyme schemes can be denoted ...

References

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Examples of consonance in poetry.
Poetic devices Rhetorical techniques {{rhetoric-stub

See also

References

External links