Cacophony and Euphony - Literary Terms

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Cacophony and Euphony - Literary Terms:

Cacophony:

Harsh, clashing, or dissonant sounds, often produced by combinations of words that require a clipped, explosive delivery, or words that contain a number of plosives consonants such as b, d, s, k, p, and t; the opposite of EUPHONY.

The following lines from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells” are cacophonous:

Hear the loud alarum bells---

Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

Euphony:

A succession of sweetly melodious sounds; the opposite of CACOPHONY. The term is applied to smoothly flowing POETRY or PROSE.

Lingering vowels and liquid consonants, other consonants to move the lines along but none that beat or blast, and perhaps the meaning of the words all combine to create euphony in these lines from John Keats's “The Eve of St. Agnes":

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,

In blanched linen, smooth, and lavendered.

See also:

SOUND DEVICES.