Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE QUALITY OF SOUNDS AS AN ELEMENT IN THE MELODY OF THE VERSE TONE-COLOR 28. The difference in the sounds of any vowels, such as a and o, is due to a difference in what is called sound- quality, or tone-quality, or tone-color. This difference in quality of the sound of the vowels is of the same nature as the difference perceived in the sound of the same note, such as middle C, when produced on different instruments, as, for example, the piano and the violin. By an extension of the exact meaning of the word ' tone, ' the consonants also are regarded as differing from each other in quality, or tone-color. 29. Onomatopoeia. In the melody of a verse much depends upon the effect produced by the quality of its sounds. It is clear that in lines like the following the poet has aimed to produce a very definite effect by the quality of the vowels and the consonants: The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees. Tennyson, The Princess VII, 206-207 Here the combination of sounds is in each word strongly suggestive of the sense. The effect of the key-words moan and murmuring, which sound like what they signify, is prolonged and intensified by a succession of words containing similar vowel and consonant sounds. This agreement of sound and meaning is called onomatopoeia. It occurs unmistakably in such imitative words as buzz, hum, kiss, rattle, clash, and the like. The following lines are also more or less onomatopoetic: And with sharp shrilling shriekes doe bootlesse cry. With dreadfull noise and hollow rombling rore. ' Spenser, Faerie Queene I, v, 23; II, xii, 25 Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Shakespeare, Macbeth IV, i, 11-12 To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep. Clashed on ..