1. Review
Musical Devices

2. Repetition of Sounds
Alliteration
Assonance
Onomatopoeia

3. Alliteration
The repetition of a sound in the initial position of various words, or of a consonant sound within the words.
In the first of the stanza just quoted from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, note the intertwining of several alliterative sequences involving f, b, w, and s

4. Alliteration The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea
This heavy use of alliteration coincides with the use of internal rhyme to impart great intensity to the lines.

5. Assonance
When the writer varies the surrounding consonant sounds, but repeats vowel sounds, the device is known as assonance
Although assonance is used as frequently as alliteration, its effects are more subtle.

6. Assonance
The reader is likely to be immediately aware of this additional means of distributing emphasis or imparting emotional tone:
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour

7. Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the imitation of natural sounds in the sounds of words.
Many common words, such as “hum” or “clatter” or “moo” sound somewhat like the sounds they name

8. Onomatopoeia
Eventhough some sounds of words do not refer to natural sounds, they may contribute an onomatopoetic effect.
In the following passage from Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur” all of these elements combine to imitate the sound of a knight in armor striding over rocky ground:

9. Onomatopoeia 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

10. Onomatopoeia
It should be noted, of course, that this effect, like the others we have discussed, will operate only if the sense of the passage reinforces and is reinforced by the sound devices