1. UGRC 160 – Introduction to Literature
SESSION 9

2. The Sound of Poetry: Rhythm and Metre, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia
Poetry Part Three
The Sound of Poetry: Rhythm and Metre, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia

3. Session Objectives At the end of the session, the student will
Understand how to identify sound devices within the poem.
Appreciate the literary value of sound devices in a poem

4. Rhythm and Metre
When we talk about rhythm in poetry, we are talking about the pattern of sounds, the order of variation of stressed and unstressed syllables so as to create a musical effect. It is not radically different from the popular usage of rhythm, especially as it refers to how we make music. But what is important here is that rhythm as it relates especially to English verse form is a very disciplined approach to organizing units of sounds (syllables) in a way that creates a musical effect. There are five basic forms of rhythm in English poetry. The most famous of these is the iambic pentameter which involves a poem with ten syllables in a line, with each stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, etc.
A foot, on the other hand, refers to the pair of stressed and unstressed syllables that go into creating rhythmic patterns. For instance, an iambic pentameter is made up of ten syllables but five feet since each foot consists of the stressed and unstressed syllable.
Meter refers to the number of “feet” of a specific kind in a line of poetry.

5. Rhythm and Metre, Cont’d
It is important to note that all the discussion above is especially true of English verse forms or poetry, and does not always apply to other forms. However, the concept of rhythm, with its focus on which syllables are stressed and which ones are not, is still useful when we read other poems even if they are not realised in iambics or trochees or whatever.
In addition to that, it is always necessary to remember that African traditions of poetry often follow African patterns of speech or music making, and iambic pentameters are certainly not an African form. For instance, Niyi Osundare’s “I Wake Up This Morning” is an example of a poem that does not use any of the popular English metre forms because its rhythm is a lot closer to the African way of producing poetry.

6. Alliteration
Alliteration is a device which involves the repetition of similar sounds. We can talk of alliteration if two or more words in a phrase or line of poetry share the same beginning sound. The words can be adjacent or can be separated by one or more words. For instance, in the sentence, “We were deeply disturbed by his recent behaviour,” the repetition of /d/ sounds constitutes a use of alliteration.

8. Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia involves the use of words that imitate the sounds they refer to. In other words, the words and their referents share a sound bond. For instance, when we talk of the hissing of a snake or the meowing of a cat or even the growling of a dog, we are using words that are intended to imitate the sounds that the various animals actually produce.

9. Onomatopoeia in Pictures

10. Study Questions
Give two examples of popular songs have been described by people as rhythmic. How different is the popular notion of rhythm associated with those songs from the definition of rhythm above?
Having read through Niyi Osundare’s “I Wake Up This Morning,” what aspects of the poem would you consider musical? Does the poem involve the use of a recognizable rhythm? Explain your answer with illustration from the poem.
What other sound devices do you see in the poem? Does the use of those devices enhance or impede your experience of the poem’s central message(s)? How?
Define alliteration in your own words and appropriately illustrate that definition.