Euphony Cacophony
Euphony is the effect of sounds being perceived as pleasant, rhythmical, lyrical, or harmonious.[6][7][8] Cacophony is the effect of sounds being perceived as harsh, unpleasant, chaotic, and often discordant; these sounds are perhaps meaningless and jumbled together.[9] Compare with consonance and dissonance in music. In poetry, for example, euphony may be used deliberately to convey comfort, peace, or serenity, while cacophony may be used to convey discomfort, pain, or disorder. This is often furthered by the combined effect of the meaning beyond just the sounds themselves.
Euphony Cacophony
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The English compound noun cellar door has been widely cited as an example of a word or phrase that is beautiful purely in terms of its sound (i.e., euphony) without inherent regard for its meaning.[12] The phenomenon of cellar door being regarded as euphonious appears to have begun in the very early twentieth century, first attested in the 1903 novel Gee-Boy by the Shakespeare scholar Cyrus Lauron Hooper. It has been promoted as beautiful-sounding by various writers; linguist Geoffrey Nunberg specifically names the writers H. L. Mencken in 1920; David Allan Robertson in 1921; Dorothy Parker, Hendrik Willem van Loon, and Albert Payson Terhune in the 1930s; George Jean Nathan in 1935; J. R. R. Tolkien in a lecture, "English and Welsh", delivered in 1955 (in which he described his reverence for the Welsh language and about which he said "cellar doors [i.e. beautiful words] are extraordinarily frequent"; see also Sound and language in Middle-earth); and C. S. Lewis in 1963.[12][13] Furthermore, the phenomenon itself is touched upon in many sources and media, including a 1905 issue of Harper's Magazine by William Dean Howells,[a] the 1967 novel Why Are We in Vietnam? by Norman Mailer, a 1991 essay by Jacques Barzun,[15] the 2001 psychological drama film Donnie Darko,[16][17] and a scene in the 2019 movie Tolkien.
The origin of cellar door being considered as an inherently beautiful or musical phrase is mysterious. However, in 2014, Nunberg speculated that the phenomenon might have arisen from Philip Wingate and Henry W. Petrie's 1894 hit song "I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard", which contains the lyric "You'll be sorry when you see me sliding down our cellar door." Following the song's success, "slide down my cellar door" became a popular catchphrase up until the 1930s or 1940s to mean engaging in a type of friendship or camaraderie reminiscent of childhood innocence.[18][b] A 1914 essay about Edgar Allan Poe's choice of the word "Nevermore" in his 1845 poem "The Raven" as being based on euphony may have spawned an unverified legend, propagated by syndicated columnists like Frank Colby in 1949[21] and L. M. Boyd in 1979, that cellar door was Poe's favorite phrase.[22]
So first off, euphony. You can probably tell what it means by its sound. "Euphony," you know, like, "euphemistic." "Eu" means good. "Phone" means sound. So euphony means good sound. Euphonious. Euphony.
So, euphony. As you can tell there's a rhythm to this poem. It's long lines-- what Ginsburg would call "long breaths"--almost like jazz riffs. You know, there's a music, there's something beautiful about how the lines just blow out. And it matches the sort of jazzy content of the "angel headed hipsters" and the "starry dynamo," right? The "hollow eyes" and "smoking the supernatural darkness." You can you can feel the rhythm, right? It's this momentum, this euphonious momentum, that's picking up speed as I read the long lines.
So this is beautiful but this is also incredibly sad. And, I would say, the word choices match that thematic combination. The euphonious beginning--the repetition of Holy! Holy!--almost like a mantra. Through this euphony, he sets up the rest of this fourth part for a beautiful display of heartbreaking images, I would say. And that's Ginsberg's point, you know? In Ginsberg's mind, the euphonious and the cacophonous merge. Nothing is completely good or completely bad. We're all wholly euphonious and cacophonous together.
Euphony is the combining of words that sound pleasant together or are easy to pronounce, usually because they contain lots of consonants with soft or muffled sounds (like L, M, N, and R) instead of consonants with harsh, percussive sounds (like T, P, and K). Other factors, like rhyme and rhythm, can also be used to create euphony. An example of euphony is the end of Shakespeare's famous "Sonnet 18," which goes "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
Euphony has to do with the way words sound, and it's easy to identify if you trust your own ear, and ask yourself: do the words sound pleasing together? On the other hand, "pleasing" is a subjective criterion: some combinations of words might sound pleasing to one person's ear, and not particularly pleasing to another's. So it's useful, when you're trying to identify euphony, to know what types of letters are used most often to make euphonic sounds. Generally speaking, those letters include:
In other words, they recommended against using the very tools that are now generally accepted as helping to create euphony. It just goes to show that, with euphony, it's often a matter of the listener's preference.
In these lines from Book XII of Lattimore's translation of Homer's Iliad, euphony helps reinforce the lulling effect of the winds dying down. Pay particular attention to the use of assonance and consonance to make the words euphonic.
This very short poem by Dorothea Grossman, titled "I have to tell you," uses a combination of factors to achieve euphony, including assonance, consonance, and lots of euphonic letters in general (e.g., lots of R's, S's).
I love words. A lot of us get into writing because we love words. We love words strung together in sentences; we love that those sentences blend to form an amazing story that we immerse ourselves in. Sometimes it's just the sound of the word that enraptures us, or maybe it's two words put together that, when combined, are the epitome of sonic euphoria. When that happens, we experience euphony.
So why should we bother with these terms? The use of euphony and cacophony can contribute to your writing by adding tone to your prose, especially in short stories or in poetry. Onomatopoeia, euphony, and cacophony often go hand in hand as well.
Imagine a rainy summer night. Use cacophony or euphony to describe the rain. Is it storming? Is it a light drizzle? Is the rain being experienced from a covered patio, or is someone or something in a mad dash to find shelter? Post your practice in the comments when you're done.
Despite its harshness, cacophony is used for musicality in writing. It makes use of connotative sounds to create disgust, frustration, or interest in the reader with loudness, noisiness, and energy in hard consonant sounds. Cacophony creates interesting poems, emotive prose, and playful songs.
As you may have noticed, cacophony often involves hard consonant sounds, such as k, t, and g. The repetition of consonants is known as consonance. The difference between consonance and cacophony is cacophony has the goal of loudness, harshness, or noisiness whereas consonance does not always have such a goal.
Cacophonic is a poetic sound device in which certain sounds create harsh and hard tones. The opposite of euphony, cacophony is colorful, noisy, loud, and energetic like the beat of a drum or the crash of a cymbal.
Cacophony has the same meaning literally as it does when applied to literature. In real life, a combination of harsh and unpleasant sounds can also be referred to as a cacophony. In this case, we will examine how the term applies to literature and its effects.
Cacophony is a tool that helps writers to amplify the intensity of uncomfortable or harsh scenarios through the use of sound. This helps to enhance the imagery of a scene by allowing readers to use their imaginations to build a full picture of what is happening, jump started by the mental or auditory effect that cacophony has.
Euphony is a term used to refer to a word or phrase that is pleasing in sound, specifically one that includes consonants and vowels that work well together. This typically relies on vowel sounds, or soft consonants, as well as words that are relaxing or melodic in nature. While a single word can be euphonic on its own, this more often refers to a line or passage from a work of poetry or prose that creates an overall sense of pleasantness. In contrast to euphony is cacophony, which refers to a series of sounds that are unpleasant or jarring within a word or phrase.
The purpose of euphony in a written work is to create a section that is pleasing to the ear, especially for works that are going to be read aloud. Speeches and poetry, which are often spoken to crowds or meant for reading out loud, often benefit from euphony within them. Visually, however, this device can still be effective, since many people hear words in their minds as they read them, replicating the effect of these words being spoken. Although the focus of euphony is typically upon the sounds made within words, even the meaning of those words is important, and so the entire passage helps create a sense of ease.
Different words and sounds can create euphony, though vowels are commonly viewed as more soothing than consonants. Softer consonants, like "w" and "s" can be relaxing and pleasant to the ear, while sounds like "k" and "t" are usually thought of as harder and less pleasing. A phrase that creates a sense of euphony would be something like, "The susurrus of song birds serenaded them beneath the moonlight in the mossy garden." In this example, there are many vowel sounds and soft consonants like "s" and "th" that work with the meaning of the words to evoke a soothing feeling.
Cacophony is the opposite of euphony and is the creation of sounds within words or phrases that are unpleasant and harsh. When this happens accidentally, it is typically considered to be a mistake or sign of poor writing, as the result is a sense of unease or disquiet in the mind of a listener. In works of poetry and prose, however, cacophony can be used on purpose, as a way to set a section apart from the rest and make it stand out, especially if it is meant to convey unpleasant ideas. An example of this might be a phrase like, "Tall and strong, the towering mountains stood in the distance, beyond the cracked and sunburned dessert." 041b061a72