How do you write alliterative verse?

Question

I've read a lot of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse and even some in modern English and on the surface it looks like it would be really easy to write. It's two four beat half lines and one word in the first half line has to start with the same sound as a word in the other half line. How simple is that?
But when I actually try to write it myself I can never make it work out and I don't even have one line that's actually alliterative verse.

Answer 1

You really need to practice. You can just sit down and write verse for a few hours a day, until you get the feel for what rhythm works with the words you like, and then keep practicing writing for a few hours a day until you get a feel for alliteration, and then put these together, and practice writing alliterative verse until it sounds good to you.

After a few years (yes, years) of practice, and reading the dictionary, you will probably be able to write a good alliterative verse, but i won't promise you that. But you will be closer to your goals.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

I am certainly no expert on the subject, but I know the basics. Take a look at Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

I believe the 13th line is generally considered to be the single most beautiful poetic line in the English Lauguage

"and the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"

It contains surperb alliteration and several other valuable poetic devices. I believe your main problem involves "meter." Iambid pentameter is the standard. Ever read a limmerick?

So....old chum....don't dispair and pull out your hair. Be fair (to yourself). Just prepare to go there until you've found the sound that will nurse your verse until it all sounds fair.

May good fortune be with you.

Answer 3

Alliteration is beginning words with the comparable consonant. that's a stylistic device. you does not oftentimes detect an entire sentence with each and every be conscious beginning with the comparable consonant except you have been reciting tongue twisters. In literature, oftentimes you detect a 2 or 3 words are adequate to grant emphasis. something so undemanding as "silver spoon" is alliteration, (somebody already mentioned (The repetition of vowel sounds is assonance.) Tongue tornado (alliteration) with a "b" Betty Botter offered slightly butter. The butter Betty Botter offered became slightly bitter And made her batter bitter. yet slightly extra useful butter might make her batter extra useful. So Betty Botter offered slightly extra useful butter, Which made Betty Botter's bitter batter extra useful. Tongue tornado (alliteration) with a w How lots timber might a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck timber? He might chuck, he might, as lots timber as he could, and chuck as lots timber as a woodchuck might chuck if a woodchuck could chuck timber. Or... i'm not the pheasant plucker, i'm the pheasant plucker's mate, and that i'm purely plucking pheasants 'reason the pheasant plucker's previous due. i'm not the pheasant plucker, i'm the pheasant plucker's son, and that i'm purely plucking pheasants until the pheasant pluckers come.