what is the difference between alliteration and repetition ?

Alliteration is a term that describes a literary stylistic device. Alliteration occurs when a series of words in a row (or close to a row) have the same first consonant sound. For example, “She sells sea-shells down by the sea-shore” or “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers” are both alliterative phrases. In the former, all the words start with the “s” sound, while in the later, the letter “p” takes precedence. Aside from tongue twisters, alliteration is also used in poems, song lyrics, and even store or brand names.

How to Identify Alliteration

The best way to spot alliteration being used in a sentence is to sound out the sentence, looking for the words with the identical consonant sounds. For example, read through these sentences to test your skills in identifying alliteration:

1. Alice’s aunt ate apples and acorns around August.
2. Becky’s beagle barked and bayed, becoming bothersome for Billy.
3. Carries cat clawed her couch, creating chaos

Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no particular placement of the words, in order to emphasize. This is such a common literary device that it is almost never even noted as a figure of speech. It also has connotations to listing for effect and is used commonly by famous poets such as Larkin.