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RETEACHING WORKSHEET

LESSON

23

COPYMASTER

Alliteration, Assonance, and

Consonance

Review: Poets use special sound effects in their poems. Alliteration is the repetition of
consonant sounds at the beginning of words. Another sound effect is assonance, or the
repetition of vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of words. Consonance is the repetition of
consonant sounds within and at the ends of words.

And the raven never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting,

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming
And the lamplight oer him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
5 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be liftednevermore!
Edgar Allan Poe
1. Find different examples of alliteration in this stanza of The Raven. Underline two or

more consonant sounds that are repeated at the beginning of words in each of the first
five lines of the stanza.

Copyright McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin Company.

Literature 23

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,

Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze
On me alone it blew.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
2. Find the assonance in this stanza of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Underline the

vowel sound that the poet repeats four times in stressed syllables.

With music strong I come, with cornets and my drums,

I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquerd
and slain persons.
Walt Whitman
3. Find the consonance in this stanza from Song of Myself. Underline the consonant

sound that the poet repeats within and at the end of eight words.

Standards Lesson Files

Book 1: Literature
Grade 9

225