Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

I recently re-read Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and found two instances where alliteration holds some minor significance.

The first line of the play is Antonio saying, "In sooth I know not why I am so sad."  In a small way, the repetition of the S sound ("so sad") lends a sense of degree.

In Act 2, Scene 4, Lorenzo gives Launcelot instructions to "Tell gentle Jessica / I will not fail her" (lines 19-20).  The initial sounds don't change very much from gentle to Jessica (the g/J and e are the same in both words), and the smoothness involved in moving from one to the other matches the meaning of "gentle."

Ann Eliza Bleecker's "Written in the Retreat from Burgoyne"

Recently, I read Ann Eliza Bleecker's "Written in the Retreat from Burgoyne" in The Heath Anthology of American Literature (Volume One, Second Edition) and noticed some significance in the structure.  The majority of the poem is rhymed couplets (sometimes merely with slant rhymes), but these are interrupted at the point where Bleecker's daughter dies:

At length her languid eyes clos'd from the day,

The idol of my soul was torn away;

Her spirit fled and left me ghastly clay!

Obviously, instead of a pair of rhymed lines, there's a trio here.  This break from the established structure hints at the disruption that Bleecker's daughter's death has on her.  Later in the poem, she describes her profound grief.

Alternatively, this section could be seen as a pair (with the rhymes "day" and "away") followed by a single, unaccompanied line ("Her spirit fled and left me ghastly clay!").  In this reading, the lack of a poetic complement mirrors Bleecker's loss.

Suzanne Collins' The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

This post contains minor spoilers.

I recently finished reading Suzanne Collins' The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes for the first time.  Here are some small observations.

In chapter six, the narrator explains that "Everybody called him [Pliny Harrington] Pup to differentiate him from his naval commander father" (p. 91).  The combination of Pliny Harrington, Sr. and Pliny Harrington, Jr. seems to be a nod to Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger.

Bridging chapters twenty-four and twenty-five, the Covey experiences a tense encounter with Billy Taupe.  As Coriolanus sizes him up, the narrator explains that "over one shoulder hung a boxy instrument with part of a piano keyboard along one side" (p. 368).  Shortly after this, Coriolanus again glimpses Billy Taupe who is accompanied by "a soft, mechanical wheeze," and the narrator notes that "his instrument [was] the source of the wheeze" (p. 373).  Apparently, his instrument is an accordion.  Since the accordion is a reed instrument, it contrasts with the stringed instruments that the rest of the Covey play (mandolin, fiddle, bass, and guitar, listed on page 361), and the difference between these instrument families highlights the rift that exists between Billy Taupe and the rest of the Covey.

The main character is called Coriolanus for most of the book, but in the epilogue, he's referred to merely as Snow.  This change seems to indicate that after his experience with the Hunger Games and his time in the Peacekeepers, he's become more impersonal and withdrawn.  This is hinted at near the end of chapter thirty, where he's glad that the snake bite he received while chasing after Lucy Gray will probably leave a scar because he thinks that "it will remind me to be more careful" in his relationships (p. 506).  His concern for his family legacy, which appears throughout the book, probably contributes to this shift, too.

Shakespeare's The Tempest

Lately, I've been re-reading The Tempest in a book of four Shakespeare plays.*  Recently, I read Act III, Scene I and noticed some significance in the structure of Ferdinand's reply when Miranda asks him if he loves her:

O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,

And crown what I profess with kind event,

If I speak true! if hollowly, invert

What best is boded me to mischief!  I,

Beyond all limit of what else i' the world,

Do love, prize, honor you.

Part of his response features a chiasm (apodosis | protasis || protasis | apodosis):

Bear witness to this sound, and crown what I profess with kind event,

If I speak true!

If hollowly,

Invert what best is boded me to mischief!

This structure highlights the opposite nature of "true" and "hollowly" and, in a way, even matches Ferdinand's "invert."

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*Four Comedies (A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest), published by Washington Square Press, Inc., 1948.  I have a copy of the 26th printing from January 1965, which I got from my grandfather's basement many years ago.