Question

What poetic device is illustrated by the line, “. . . all night long, by a fire-fly lamp”? A. assonance B. alliteration C. consonance D. personification

Answer 1

Answer: The answer is alliteration B.

Explanation: the sound I /ai/ is present in adjacent connected words. Explanation: alliteration is the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Answer 2

Answer:

I believe the correct answer is letter A. assonance.

Explanation:

Assonance is a literary device that consists of repeating a vowel sound in words that are close in position to each other and begin with different consonants. That is precisely what we have in "...all night long, by a fire-fly lamp." Study the phonetic transcription below:

ɔl naɪt lɔŋ, baɪ ə ˈfaɪər-flaɪ læmp

We can see there are two vowel sounds being repeated in close words: / ɔ / for all and long, and / aɪ / for night, fire, and fly (separated here just to illustrate our point). These words, even though having the same vowel sounds and being located close to each other in the sentence, begin with different consonants. All those characteristics constitute assonance.