Soccer Poems Short
Two Overlooked Figures Of Speech
TWO OVERLOOKED FIGURES OF SPEECH
Every writer and poet knows all about figures of speech–or do they? Indeed, there’s rhyme, alliteration, irony, metaphor, synecdoche, you name it. Everyone who’s taken a writing course in college, or sometimes even in high school for that matter, has heard of these and quite a few more. So what’s the problem? There are two speech figures that most literati are aware of, to be sure, but often don’t fully appreciate for their potential utility. One is based on word sound, the other on word meaning. Both, to some scholars, are mere literary curiosities. That‘s too bad, because these two figures offer great possibilities for enriching both prose and poetry. They are assonance and kenning.
Every poet, ad copy writer, greeting card author and political speech writer knows
what alliteration and rhyme are, and just how to use them. But how many of these folks
know what assonance is, or if they do, how to use it correctly? If they don’t, it’s a shame,
because this third word sound option has real potential for enriching both written and oral
literary and persuasive communication. Simply stated, assonance is the third repetitive sound possibility, being based on vowel sounds in the middle of words. Whereas alliteration deals with the front ends of words, i.e. a “real red roof,” and rhyme is all about their back end sounds, as in a “bad sad fad,” assonance centers on word middles. An example is “ride the pie-eyed fire.” Here the long “I” sound repeats four times, but none of the words are either alliterative or rhyming. Of course in actual prose or poetry, there’s no reason all three repetitive sound effects or two of the three can’t team up.–Consider, “French food eaten in June gets one in the mood to feast fully soon.”
Another interesting application of assonance is some poets have used it as a sort of half way form between traditional rhyming and completely blank verse poetry. For example, Emily Dickinson was fond of substituting assonance for rhyme on the ends of poetic lines.
Assonance first appeared in English in medieval ballads, and was known orally before its use became standardized within these songs, poems and stories when persons began writing them down. During the Nineteenth Century, Edgar Allan Poe and Algernon Swinburne frequently worked assonance into their poems. More recently, Gerard Manley Hopkins appears to have made a concerted effort to expand assonance into more widespread poetic use. Dylan Thomas was the most recent poet and writer to use it extensively, and was probably the speech figure‘s most enthusiastic proponent.
While assonance was pioneered by medieval troubadours and largely developed by poets over the last 200 years, it never-the-less has application beyond those literary forms. For instance, the same effect that allowed Emily Dickinson to bridge a gap between
rhyming and fully blank verse poetry can serve a similar function for ad copy. A particular
copywriting task may appear unsuited to alliteration or rhyme, because the product being
promoted needs serious treatment, an example being a new prescription medication.
Using alliteration could create a childish image for an adult-oriented product, and doing the
ad in rhyming lines might come across as “corny.” Assonance can help the copy writer
develop line to line cohesion without conveying an overly poetic image.Likewise, the greeting card industry has seen a gradual, long-term movement toward greater reliance on blank verse. However, use of both alliteration and rhyme is still quite alive and well there, too. In blank verse card verses, assonance can help lines read more smoothly. In cards that are more traditionally poetic, assonance will help build stronger emotional impacts, teaming up with rhyme to increase the number of recurring sounds in a given card‘s message.
Speeches and other serious orations, because they are verbal, have something in
common with those medieval ballads. Here, the speech writer is searching for greater sound cohesion over a sequence of words, just like the old-time balladeer was. Obviously,
alliteration or rhyme has less application in a serious message, notwithstanding US criminal
defense lawyer Johnny Cochrane’s famous, “If it (the glove) doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
Assonance allows for a more subtle way to guaranty smooth flow of prose.But what if someone is just a “plain old writer?” He or she either writes fiction stories or does nonfiction articles–no poetry, no ad copy, no greeting cards, no speeches. Is assonance of any use? Assonance can help story and article writers in two ways.–First of all, when dialogue occurs in a story, assonance can help smooth it out, so words impact the reader more. For example, which reads more smoothly? ”I love you so much, my beautiful darling, you are the light of my life, my whole reason for being here, the very essence of my every thought, my sweetheart!” or “I love you, over and over. You move me to find new solutions to old problems. I think of you often; I must prove to you that above all, I choose you because!”
The second example contains two assonant themes, short “O” (love, solutions, of, often), and long “O” (over, move, to, old, prove, choose). The first example, while indeed passionately stated, has many internal vowel sounds, none of them assonant. It does have one assonant pair, light and life, but its long “I” sound fails to recur, so anyimpact isn‘t carried through. But what about nonfiction? Here, article writers don’t have the luxury of manufacturing dialogue. They can, however, fashion descriptive prose so it reads more convincingly, albeit more subtly, than do repeated sounds found in fiction or poetry. Many article writers sneak an occasional alliteration or rhyme into their work, but have to take care lest these figures distract readers from factual content. Assonance, because it’s not as overtly obvious, can sometimes help.
For instance, here are two sentences from a hypothetical engineering article about
wind turbines. Sentence Number One: ”Vertical bladed turbines are not self-starting,
whereas propeller types automatically begin turning when the wind blows.” Sentence
Number Two: ”When wind blows, a propeller just goes; vertical blade turbines need other
energy to begin rotating.” The second example contains an assonant long “O” (blows, goes, rotating) and short “E” ( propeller, vertical, energy, begin). Both sentences contain sixteen words. What then, about assonance? It has wide applicability across the entire writing spectrum. Because of its greater subtlety, it’s not as well known or used as its more
obvious cousins, alliteration and rhyme. It ‘s one more weapon that belongs in a writer’s bag of tricks regardless of what genre wordsmith that writer might be.
Whereas assonance derives its power from the effects of word sounds, kenning gets its impact from the impact of word meanings. Every writer and poet knows all about simile, metonymy, personification and those other great tricks that add punch to an article, story or poem by marshaling specialized word impacts. Such figures of speech are important components of every wordsmith’s style. But kenning, one of the most potentially powerful speech figures of all, is overlooked or underused by far too many writers and poets. Just what specifically is kenning? Basically it’s the art of renaming a noun or verb with a term composed of two or more words that somewhat describe it or what it does. An example is
the term an obscure ad copy writer coined back in the 1930′s for a new automobile–”dream machine.”
A famous writer and poet who didn’t overlook kenning was one of the earliest among well-known English literati. Geoffrey Chaucer, the great Fifteenth Century statesman and scholar, was a frequent ken user. In “Canterbury Tales,” he coined what may be the most famous ken of all time, when he referred to his beloved North Sea as a “Whale Road.”As great a writer as he was, Chaucer didn’t invent kenning. He probably learned it from the old Norse sagas, called skalds, that Vikings and Scandinavian colonists brought to the British Isles from the Sixth through Thirteenth Centuries. There wasn’t a skald that didn’t have at least several kens in it. Some of these terms caught on as definitions in Celtic, Norwegian or English, and are in use even today by users who haven’t a clue regarding origin. For
instance, a sword is sometimes called a “war onion.” Why are kens sometimes preferable in prose or poetry to usage of the standard dictionary word definition? After all, isn’t a so-called regular word for something more clear and apparent to the reader than a more euphemistic term?–Of course it is, but there are times that using a ken provides heightened emphasis for an author’s point.
To explain, let’s revisit “war onion” as a synonym for “sword.” This is a little harder to grasp than calling the North Sea a whale road. After all, everyone knows what whales are and obviously realizes that a body of water allows them to go from place to place, as people might on a road. To decipher this ken, “war onion” must be taken in original context.–King Harald of Norway was highly unpopular as a greedy and often warlike ruler. His predecessor, King Haakon had been widely regarded as generous and kind. Harald’s Norse subjects came to regard their ruler as unpleasant, like a strong-smelling onion, prone to using a sword to achieve his ends by war. Back in the Tenth Century, this euphemism for the king was perfectly clear to everyone, as it underscored in peoples’ minds how they felt about him. However, as years went by and Harald was forgotten, the “war onion” came to mean an actual sword, as the initial object of derision was no longer around.
The value of kenning lies in the sudden emphasis that strikes the reader as he/she fathoms a ken. One example, from American politics of the 1960′s, is the derogatory term “dike bomber” foes of the Vietnam War used against Pres. Richard Nixon. This was a circuitous way to imply that Nixon was destroying peaceful agricultural water sources of the Vietnamese people. This was a more powerful statement than merely stating that he ordered Viet Nam bombed. Anti-Semitic persons have used a ken to induce hatred against Jews for centuries. Rather than just refer to them as Jews, Hebrews or Semites, bigots
coined the term “Christ Killers.” This obviously promoted hatred, as almost all persons, including non-Christians, regard Jesus as a positive, beneficent figure.Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, was no friend of Christianity, but by using this term, he attempted to lead Christians to follow Nazi thinking.
Kenning is not just a tool for political statement or bigoted propaganda. It lends itself to powerfully conveying a wide gamut of emotions and beliefs, including humor and the telling of jokes. For instance, a doctor touting daily aspirin usage as helping avoid strokes might call it “your heart’s assistant.” An environmentalist becomes a “tree hugger.” A soccer fan objecting to use of steroids in sports might term a goal scored by a steroid user a “chemically assisted kick .” And many of us refer to wives, better halves, partners, etc. with
a variety of kenned terms that would make even Chaucer proud (or blush)!
Australian husbands, for whatever reason, sometimes tab the wife a “boiler.”
So perhaps writers of fiction and articles, and poets too, should borrow a page out of old Geoffrey’s book, and do some occasional kenning . A strategically placed ken belongs in everybody’s elements of style, along with rhyme, oxymoron, alliteration, onomatopoeia, allegory and all that other good stuff.
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About the Author
Glenn Dahlem, age 75, lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, where as a recovering stroke victim, he’s catching up on his writing. He holds an M.S. degree from Winona (Minnesota) State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His articles have recently appeared in Scholastic Coach and Athletic Director, American Salesman, Runner’s Digest and Writer’s Journal.
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