What Is Cacophony In Poetry? | With Examples

Cacophony (pronounced as kuh-ko-fuh-nee) refers to the use of harsh or unharmonious sounds to achieve a discordant effect in poetry.  It is the opposite of euphony, which refers to sounds that have a harmonious effect. 

It is usually achieved using combinations of words that produce staccato and typically involve explosive consonants. Abrupt pauses are also an effective means of achieving this literary device. Here is an example from Derek Walcott's "A Far Cry From Africa" (published in 1962), where explosive consonants are used to create cacophony:

Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?

The phrase "divided to the vein" has a preponderance of consonant "t," "d," and "v" sounds that, when said, result in a staccato effect. This helps emphasize the internal turmoil that the poet faces in choosing between his English and African heritage in the face of a war or conflict (i.e., the Mau Mau Rebellion) where both sides are committing atrocities.

Cacophony is often used in combination with euphony in the same poem, depending on the poet’s intended effect. This can be seen in poems such as Kamau Brathwaite’s “Kumina” (published in 2005) and Matthew Arnold’s “Philomela” (published in 1838). These two poems will be discussed in terms of how they use both euphony and cacophony, as well as other examples. 

Portrait of Matthew Arnold, who wrote "Philomela."

Examples of cacophony 

Our first example of cacophony is from Matthew Arnold’s poem, “Philomela.” The poem is based on the Greek myth of Philomela, an unfortunate woman who suffered the trauma of sexual assault and mutilation. 

Moments before being killed by her abuser, she is saved by the Greek gods, who transform her into a nightingale. (If you want to learn more about Philomela's story, you can check out my previous article on pathetic fallacy vs. personification: Pathetic Fallacy vs Personification.)

Here is the first stanza of the poem.

1. Matthew Arnold, “Philomela” (1838): 

Hark! ah, the nightingale—

The tawny-throated!

Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!

What triumph! hark!—what pain!

The poem relies on a form of personification known as pathetic fallacy, where human qualities and feelings are given to an object or animal. Matthew Arnold, the persona of the poem, is sitting outside at night in modern day England, hears a nightingale, and treats it as if it were Philomela flying out of the ancient lands of Greek myth and into the present. 

The abrupt stops in the first line, along with punctuation marks, such as the exclamation mark and em dash, result in a staccato effect. It mirrors the loud and startling sound of a nightingale plaintively singing during the quiet of the night. 

The harsh consonant sounds in a phrase like “the tawny-throated” also have a discordant and staccato effect. Lastly, the placement and pronunciation of the word “hark” as an exclamation is effective cacophony as the word ends in harsh consonance. 

The poet also uses euphony in combination with cacophony. For example, in Stanza three, the poet employs assonance and other devices, such as liquid consonants, to achieve a soothing mood, to wonder if the British landscape can bring relief to the tortured creature:

Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn

With its cool trees, and night,

And the sweet, tranquil Thames,

And moonshine, and the dew,

To thy rack'd heart and brain

Afford no balm?

The poem ends on a note of discordance, with abrupt pauses, em dashes, and exclamation marks: 

Listen, Eugenia—

How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves!

Again—thou hearest?

Eternal passion!

Eternal pain!

The difficult-to-pronounce consonance and sibilance in the word “bursts” as well as in “come” and “crowding” also add to the cacophonic effect. In short, the poem uses cacophony to leave us with the impression of eternal and soul-disturbing human trauma. 

Our second example is from Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Voice” (published in 1914). It is a poem where the poet imagines hearing the voice of his deceased lover in the wind blowing through the tree leaves and long grass.

2. Hardy, “The Voice” (1914): 

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?

        Thus I; faltering forward,

        Leaves around me falling,

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,

        And the woman calling.

Hardy employs sibilance, consonance, and even rhyme to achieve cacophonic effects. The sibilance in the first line of the poem extract does a good job of both imitating the sound of wind blowing through the leaves and creating a slightly discordant effect, especially in combination with the "t" and "br" consonant sounds. The same can be said of the consonance in the phrase “wan wistlessness.” 

In the following stanza, we should also pay attention to the line “Thus I; faltering forward.” The difficult “f” consonance in “faltering forward” contributes to the lack of harmony in the sound of the line. In addition, the caesura presented by the semicolon also leads to a disruptive pause that adds to the cacophony of the line. 

Our next example is from Kamau Brathwaite’s famous “Kumina.” It is a poem about a mother mourning the loss of her son by resorting to an Afro-Caribbean ritual to communicate with his spirit. The mood and the tone of the poem range between discordant grief and sublime sorrow. We will look at an extract that features discordant grief. 

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3. Brathwaite, “Kumina” (2005): 

on the fifth day

after yr death. a young white rooster. white white white feathery & shining tail & tall

neigbour of sound from miles away in the next village

stands in the yard & from his red crown crows & crows & will not go away

he struts round to the back-a-wall

his one eye clicking clicking as he crows

Five days after the son dies, a rooster shows up like a mysterious and difficult-to-read omen. In the second and third lines of the poem extract, we have the use of consonance with repetition of the word “white” and “tail & tall.” There is also a speed up of the language due to a lack of punctuation. 

The repetitive “cr” sounds in Line 5 also contribute to the dissonance in the poem, as well as the harsh consonant sounds in the line “clicking clicking as he crows.” The mystery of the white rooster turns into despair when dogs kill it, and she expresses her grief in the same stanza: 

i am unhappy like the wind & tides are restless rivers

i can’t find you. i can’t find you. i cannot cannot cannot be console to dreams

Again, here the consonance and repetition add to the cacophonic effect of the poem. In addition, it highlights the sense of frantic despair that the mother feels. Lastly, the caesuras punctuated by the periods in the last line also result in abrupt pauses that contribute to the deep sense of mental and emotional disturbance.

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, September 25). What Is Cacophony In Poetry? | With Examples. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/cacophony