ASSONANCE,

CONSONANCE
AND
DISSONANCE


English 11 AP Literary Terms K. Curran
Definitions:
Assonance is the
repetition of vowel sounds.
For example, "She sells
seashells by the
seashore" contains the
repetition of short E and
long E sounds - - that's
assonance. So is the old
slogan for Hoover vacuum
cleaners: "It beats as it
sweeps as it cleans.
There is no actual rhyme
there, in the English
sense, but there is the
repetition of vowel sounds.
Consonance is the
repetition of consonant
sounds, especially at the
end of stressed
syllables, without the
correspondence of
vowels, as you would
have in rhyme. An
example would be the
repetition of consonants
or of a consonant
pattern, especially at the
ends of words, as in
blank and think or strong
and string.
Assonance Consonance
More examples of assonance:
"Strips of
tinfoil
winking
like
people

(Sylvia
Plath,
"The
Bee
Meeting"
)

"Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-
tormented sea."
(W.B. Yeats, "Byzantium)

"I must confess that in my quest I
felt depressed and restless."
(Thin Lizzy, "With Love")

More examples of consonance:
Note the S
sounds
throughout
and the Ws.
In some
languages,
rhyme is
defined by
internal
vowel and/or
consonant
sounds,
instead of
final rhymes,
as it is in
English.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening
by
Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Whose woods these are I think I
know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with
snow.

As a literary term, dissonance means a
harsh or inharmonious sound. It is similar
to the term cacophony. Generally
speaking, writers employ dissonance on
purpose to suggest anger or discord, or for
deliberate dramatic effect. Dissonance
employs language that is discordant and
difficult to pronounce, such as this line from
John Updikes Player Piano: "never my
numb plunker fumbles."
Dissonance
Dissonance
There are many great examples of dissonance
in literature, but perhaps the best way to
understand the concept is to think like

A Klingon!
Klingons
In the original Star Trek series in the 1960s,
the Klingons were bad guys. They were
unceasingly violent, and had few, if any
redeeming qualities. (They were developed as
characters and became less cartoonishly evil
in later versions of the series.)
Die-hard Star Trek fans developed a complete
Klingon language and lexicon.
This language reflects the
Klingons natural state of anger.
Klingon to English Harsh,
Baby
Ha-qua ma pay qua
mack!

DaHjajaj QaQ
Daghajjaj!
Ja cho mack raj pen
gah tack!
Hab Sachi Quatch!

Toe Dwa Maj
Gositequak
The bile of the
vanquished flows over
my hands!
Have a nice day!
Mate until your blood
screams!
Your mother has a
smooth forehead!
Merry Christmas
I have used phonetics, of
course
The original Klingon would look something like:

which would be pronounced Tak marhuk ped
toe murhark, and translates into Ooooh, that
flower arrangement is soooo fabulous!
Dissonant, eh?


Websites gratefully cited
include:
http://www.kli.org/ (The Klingon Language
Institute)
http://www.online-literature.com/frost/
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/updike.htm
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/
http://www.hotink.com/warriorgallery/01.html
http://www.stanford.edu/class/engl187/docs/pl
athpoem.html