ALLITERATION

in prosody, is the recurrence of words or syllables beginning with the same letter, as in the well known line, ‘By apt alliteration’s artful aid’ (Church ill). Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic poetry were entirely alliterative, and Lang land’s Vision of Piers Plowman is of the same character. It did not fall into general disuse until about the middle of the XIV. cent., and still occurs. Tennyson has: ‘his heavyburne used it often to great effect.