Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in stressed syllables within or across lines of verse. It is one of the oldest sound devices in poetry, predating rhyme as a structural principle in the Germanic languages.
In Old English and other early Germanic poetry, alliteration was not ornamental but structural: it was the primary binding device that held the two halves of a line together across the caesura. Each line typically had three or four stressed syllables, of which at least two (and usually three) alliterated. This alliterative verse tradition persisted in English poetry through the fourteenth century (Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) and has been revived by modern poets.
In post-medieval poetry, alliteration functions as a local effect rather than a governing structure. It can create emphasis, bind words into sonic units, produce a sense of density or speed, or foreground particular consonant textures — the heaviness of repeated b and d, the sharpness of k and t, the continuity of s and l.
Related terms
- assonance — repetition of vowel sounds
- consonance — repetition of consonant sounds in any position
- prosody — the broader study of sound in verse
- caesura — the medial pause that alliteration bridges in Old English verse