ABSTRACT

We saw in Chapter 6 that the alliteration and assonance of ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ trigger effects over and above the literal meaning of this phrase. We were considering the alliteration and assonance as features on the phonic/graphic level. But, like all utterances, this one can also be considered on the other five levels of textual variables. The extra meanings, for instance, are features on the grammatical level, while part of the effect of Keats’s phrase derives from features on the sentential level. These are the levels we look at in the present chapter.