ALLITERATION
Another technique poets use is alliteration, the repetition of initial consonant sounds. When Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "not a feather then he fluttered, Till I scarcely more than muttered—Other friends have flown before," he deliberately repeated beginning consonant sounds (the f in feather, fluttered, flown) with the intended effect of driving the lines forcefully into the reader's mind. Alliteration need not create this harsh effect. John Keats, in "Ode to a Nightingale," used alliteration of the same letter, f, to create the opposite effect: "Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget."
