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Updated: May 1, 2025
After the introduction of Christianity there appeared many hymns, metrical lives of the saints, and religious and reflective poems. The melody of the Saxon verse was regulated by syllabic accent or emphasis, and not by quantity, like the classical metres. Alliteration, or the use of several syllables in the same stanza beginning with the same letter, takes the place of rhyme.
The poems consist of strophes of six or eight lines each, with little of the alliteration by which the Scalds were afterwards distinguished.
In the same way as Euphuism is founded upon a balance of the sentence obtained by antithetical clauses, and the use of intricate alliteration, together with the abuse of simile and metaphor drawn from what has been aptly termed Lyly's 'un-natural history'; so Sidney's style in the Arcadia is based on a balance usually obtained by a repetition of the same word or a jingle of similar ones, together with the abuse of periphrasis, and, it may be added, of the pathetic fallacy.
As Sam Dunham, in one of his matchless Alaskan poems, with fine alliteration says: "We traversed the toe-twisting tundra, Where reindeer root round for their feed";
This, however technical, was a fundamental question; and, until it was settled, there was but little use in debating the weightier matters of the law. The discussion, which might have raged for ever among the critics, was happily cut short by the healthy instinct of the poets. Against alliteration the question had already been given by default.
In practice, I should add, the ear is not always so exacting; and ordinary writers, in ordinary moments, content themselves with avoiding what is harsh, and here and there, upon a rare occasion, buttressing a phrase, or linking two together, with a patch of assonance or a momentary jingle of alliteration.
Meanwhile, newspapers clamor against the coddling of criminals, and the too indulgent officials smile sadly and protest that they have not the heart to be stern. "Coddling criminals" the alliteration makes it roll pleasantly off the tongue! But do I forget the many indulgences given to prisoners and so profusely celebrated in every mention publicly made of Atlanta Penitentiary?
"They bring the body, and we pay the price," he used to say, dwelling on the alliteration "quid pro quo." And, again, and somewhat profanely, "Ask no questions," he would tell his assistants, "for conscience' sake." There was no understanding that the subjects were provided by the crime of murder.
"He is not so facile to forget as ready to revenge," said poor Wilkes, with neat alliteration. "My very heavy and mighty adversary will disgrace and undo me. "It sufficeth," continued Leicester, "that her Majesty both find my dealings well enough, and so, I trust will graciously use me.
Definition of time in reference to himself was a necessity of expression; he could not have sacrificed it for alliteration or any other trick of composition, because he would not have dreamt of changing the time in ascribing words to persons.
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