The Phonoaesthetic Features in T.S. Eliot’s Selected Poems

Abstract

A comprehensive revision on literature, especially poetry, reveals that there is a very strong connection between poetry and phonology. This paper identifies the     phonoaesthetic instances in poetry i.e., consonance and assonance in five selected poems written by T.S. Eliot who was the most prominent figure in English poetry.

This paper finds out the answers to questions behind the use of such features and the harmony and aesthetic value between the process of writing a poem and phonological features such as consonance and assonance whether they have been used intentionally or casually.

This paper shows that T.S. Eliot utilizes phonoaesthetic features i.e., consonance and assonance as stylistic features to add musicality and emphasis on certain phrases and words. It also confirms the hypothesis of this article that plosives consonants and close front vowels are heavily used and most frequently by (114) and (112) times for /s/ and /t/ and (77) and (85) times for /e/ and /i/.