Alphabets and Alliteration

See what I did there? Oh!... Yeah, no. Anyways, my friend told be about this thing where you blog everyday in April excluding Sundays (you can read her blog HERE), and each blog focuses on a topic that starts with a letter of the alphabet, in proper order. This means that today's blog is to be centered around something that starts with an 'A', and because I'm explaining this whole alphabet/letter for a day thing, I decided one topic would be alphabets (also, see how long this lasts... I'm betting I forget at some point, because I do that), and since I seem to ramble I decided to put alliteration in there so that I could talk about my Scots Lit course again. :)

So, alphabets - we've all got them. They're a series of letters that make up our words (or rather our written language), and they're pretty awesome. They're also rather varied. I mean, the English and French alphabets may appear fairly similar (until you get into pronunciations), but the Gaelic alphabet looks nothing like ours (well, some of it does, but not all of it. their letters are also differently named in many cases). Alphabets are imperative and can be rearranged to suit our needs and form words, which is pretty awesome. And from alphabets I'm going to move on to something that uses them, and an example I'm pretty fond of at that.

Alliteration! It uses the alphabet, clearly (as does this whole post.. weird, eh?), but it does more than that. Alliteration, for those of you who aren't quite as English nerd-like as I am, or that can't remember English 12 (or 9-11 either) is the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllable in a series of words (wow, that's wordy. Chew on that!). And it's neat. And it ties back to the Scots Lit course, which I love.

I was assigned a series of sonnets to read about a week ago, which I did, and this one sonnet was included that was basically just alliteration. I'm not sure what parts of it actually meant because the whole purpose was to be alliterative, but it's pretty awesome so I thought I'd share. I've taken this text from my 2008 version of The Mercat Anthology of Early Scottish Literature 1375-1707, and I've attempted to gloss it as best I could in this space.

'Ane Literall Sonnet.'
Dull dolor dalie dois delyt destroy,
Will wantith wit, waist worn with wickit wo,
Cair cankert causith confortles convoy,
Seveir sad sorrow scharplie schoris so,
My myrthles mynd may mervell monie mo;
'Promp!' perles, proper, pleasand, perll preclair,
Fair fremmit freind, firm fellest frownyng fo,
Ryche rubie - rycht renownit, royall, rair -
Send succor soone, so suadge sall sourest sair,
Crant grivous gronyng gratious guerdon guid,
For favor flowing from fresche faces fair
Restoris rychtlie, restles rancor ruid,
Bot beutie, breding bittir boudin baill
Dois (dalie) deedlie, dwynyng dartis daill.
-John Stewart of Baldynneis

wantith (lacks); cankert (ill-natured); convoy (companionship); schoris (threatens); mervell (imagine); Promp (help); perll preclair (lustrous pearl); firm fellest (most cruel); rycht renownit (justly renowned); so suadge sall (may be assuaged); sair (pain); guerdon (reward); For (because); breding (which breeds); boudin (grievous); dwynyng (debilitating); daill (distribute).


Apparently in the Reulis James VI urged Scottish poets to use alliterative verses in order to emphasize the strong sound of Scots and Stewart took this to heart here. Like I've said, I'm not actually sure what the whole thing means, but when it's said properly it sounds soo cool! However, if you happen to actually know me, don't have me read it. My Scottish accent's pretty laughable right now. I think that's going to be all for tonight though, because I'm running out of thoughts (and tea! - thought you'd get out of this without having to read about my addiction, eh??). By the way, Happy April Fool's day (ohmygoodness, another 'A'!)

Also, has anyone else noticed that I always seem to post after 9pm? I've just noticed this...