Originally posted by tomtom232
An alliteration is when to words start with the same letter... like Orange Octopi in the silver sky... two alliterations. One also has to be an adjective and the other one a noun.
Yes, but no. Alliteration's artful aid always applies, even if one is an adverb. The category of the words is not important; only the initial sounds are. In fact, depending on which period you're talking about, all vowels alliterate with one another. In more or less all periods, it's about sounds, too, not letters - so cigar and sordid alliterate, but cigar, chess and computer do not (and computer alliterates with kimono).
If you want some decent alliteration, you could do worse than Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Either the original (less clear than Chaucer, but much easier than, say, Beowulf) or Tolkien's excellent alliterating translation would do.
Connection to chess? Well, there is a mediæval Dutch romance in which Gawain (by the name of Walewein) chases a floating chess board. I don't know if that one uses alliteration, though. Couperus' modern interpretation certainly doesn't, but it is rather funny.
Richard
Treasure + Hook Mates
24 Sep '11 01:45
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