The English language offers writers boundless opportunities to express themselves. A writer does not necessarily have to use rhyme to introduce musicality in their work; it is known that musicality increases remembrance in the reader’s mind. Playing around with the sounds that single words or word combinations produce can help the writer achieve the same effect. One literary tool that can facilitate such artistic approaches in literary work is consonance. Let’s learn all we need to know about consonance.

The definition of consonance

Consonance is a literary device in which similar consonant sounds are repeated in words that are in close proximity or a line of text. Consonance is not limited to a specific location in occurrence in a word (or line of text). It can occur in the middle or at the end of the word or line of text.

Examples of words with consonance

I will specifically use examples of some famous characters of various TV shows. Chances are very high that you already know some of them. Their unique names have consonance, which is possibly the main reason why you still remember them. They include:

Lisa Simpson (The Simpsons)

George Jetson and Jane Jetson (The Jetsons)

Cosmo Kramer (sitcom Seinfeld)

Severus Snape (Harry Potter)

Dumbledore (Harry Potter)

Bilbo Baggins (Lord of the Rings)

Can you spot the use of consonance in the listed names? Pretty simple, right? Some words with consonance are also common in our daily conversations:

It’s a matter of time

odds and ends

tea and toast

best bet

You did enjoy tongue twisters while you were young? Great! Now more than any other genre or sub-genre of literary work, tongue twisters employ the use of consonance a lot. (It goes without saying, they also use alliteration and assonance). Here’s an example of a tongue twister:

She sells seashells on the seashore.

The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure.

And if she sells seashells on the seashore,

Then I’m sure she sells seashells on the seashore.

There is consonance in all the lines of this tongue twister. There are identical consonant sounds in the words “she”, “shells”, and “shore.” There are also identical consonant sounds in the words “sells”, “sea”, and “sea.”

Great writers such as William Shakespeare also employed the use of consonance in their work. Sonnet 64 – “When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d” is one of the best examples of Shakespeare’s use of consonance.

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d

The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras’d

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main,

Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

There is consonance in almost every line of this poem. You can clearly see it in the fifth line, “Increasing store with loss and loss with store.”

Consonant sounds

Sibilance

The use of soft consonant sounds such as “f, s, x, z, c, ch, sh, and th” produces a hissing effect which is called sibilance.
 

Plosive consonants

These are consonant sounds that produce an “explosive” effect or sound when pronounced. There are two categories of plosive consonants:

Voiceless plosives: “k, p, and t” (produce the sharpest sounds)

Voiced plosives: “b, d, and g” (produce a slightly softer impact)

Harmonious consonants

These types of consonants produce a softy and melodic effect. They include: “l, m, n, and r.”

The difference between consonance, alliteration, and assonance

While alliteration is limited to the repetition of initial consonant sounds (or consonant sounds at the beginning of words), consonance applies to the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words (in a sentence).

Assonance refers to the repetition of vowel sounds in words that are in close proximity or a line of text.

Consonance helps to make literary work appeal to the audience and also remain memorable in their minds.

Sources

https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/consonance
https://literarydevices.net/consonance