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Use Of Alliteration In The Raven By Edgar Allen Poe

Decent Essays

1. Alliteration: A word that follows another word with the same consonant sounds is alliteration. Alliteration is used quite often in poetry as it helps create a certain tone or mood for a poem. Words that use alliteration are effective as it uses sound to bring focus to specific parts of a poem that are vital in making an idea or an emotion known. The use of alliteration is very clever as it is a simple trick authors use to grab a reader’s attention and help readers understand what they are trying to say. Edgar Allen Poe uses alliteration quite often in his poem “The Raven” to create a somber and ominous mood. Poe uses phrases like “weak and weary” and “doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before” to emphasize the darkness of the poem. The alliteration used also gives readers a sense that nothing good will come at the end of “The Raven” as the phrases that use alliteration are dreary and unwelcoming.
2. Imagery: A descriptive word that creates a vivid image in one’s mind is imagery. Imagery is used in all different forms of literature like short stories, dramas, and poems. Words or phrases that use imagery can describe the senses such as sight, taste, or even smell. Poets use imagery in their poems as it helps readers connect to the poem. Readers can create their own personal images and pictures in their head with the assistance of imagery. Imagery also has readers look at and analyze poems through their own individual experiences with the imagery used. Imagery can also set the mood for a poem. If words like “sunny” or “soft” are used in a poem they’d set a happy mood, but if words like “rainy” or “foggy” are used they’d set a sad mood. “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot uses plenty of imagery to give readers insight as to what exactly the speaker sees and feels. The speaker in the poem takes what seems to be the woman he loves on a walk through, what he describes, “streets that follow like a tedious argument/ of insidious intent” (Eliot 759). The imagery that the speaker uses to describe the street is strange because instead of taking the woman he loves through a romantic and nice street, he describes the street as an argument, which is something that can be annoying,

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