English Literature Made Easy for Students

  2. Assonance:   Assonance is produced when some words beginning with or having the same vowel sounds are placed next to each other or almost in proximity (nearby).  The purpose of the poet or the writer by using assonance is to produce rhythm and music in the lines written.  In assonance, the vowel sounds produced by letters matter, but not the letters. There is a slight difference between assonance and consonance.  It is that the consonance is produced by the repetition of the consonant sounds while assonance is produced by the repetition of the vowel sounds. Examples: “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (From the  poem "Do Not Go Gentle into the Good Night" by Dylan Thomas   See the long ‘o’ sound in the lines below:   “Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poem came.”   "I lie down by the side of my bride" [The sound ...

  1.Onomotapoeia:  It is a figure of speech very much used in literary works to create an illusion of the actual sound of the things being described.  For example, the word ‘thunder’ creates the illusion of the sound produced by the clouds. Similarly, we have the words used for the illusion of the sound/voice/noise created by the words like ‘roar’ for by the lions, ‘howling’ by the wolves, etc., buzzing by the bees, ‘boom’ by an explosion of some fireworks, etc., thud by the falling of a thing, grumbling by human beings, ‘tick-tick’ for the clock, ‘gong’ for the hitting on a big-bell, ‘ding-dong’ for some musical instrument, etc. We have a long list of the words used under the name of this literary device. But a few of them are mew, moan, groan, mumble, mutter, whisper, whooping, knell, hush, churning, throbbing, screech, chatter, etc. Examples:   (i)‘He saw nothing and heard nothing but he could feel his heart pounding and then he heard the  cla...

  The Language, the Narrative Style and the Literary Merits’ of Kanthapura   Kanthapura is a successful novel even if it is judged through its narrative style and techniques used by Raja Rao. It was a big challenge for the writer to achieve his goal by writing this novel in English. He had to make some innovations in his narrative style to suit the Indian atmosphere.   Let’s study this novel in the light of the use of ‘language, the narrative style and the literary merits’ of Kanthapura.   As we know, it was not an easy task for the writer to narrate a tale of an imaginary village, named Kanthapura, where people had different mindsets and where most of the people were illiterate, following different myths and superstitions. They were the people who were divided on the basis of caste and religion. The writer was to portray them as living beings, clashing with one another to safeguard their personal interests and then to elevate them to unite for the bigger cause...