Euphony Examples

Euphony literally means "sweet-voiced," and refers to how pleasing something sounds to the person who hears it. When used in reference to literature, euphony refers to the author's use of language that is pleasing and melodious to the ear.

Authors can create euphony in their writing by using repetition of sounds-vowel sounds especially-and soft consonants. Writers often use alliteration, assonance, and rhyme to make the writing more smooth and pleasing to the ear of the reader. For example, the "w" sound used over an over is softer and more pleasing than a hard sound like a "k" used over and over.

Examples of Euphony in Literature:

Many lullabies are examples of euphony because they are designed to lull a baby to sleep:

Rock a bye baby in the tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.

I see the moon, and the moon sees me. The moon sees the one I want to see.

So God bless the moon, and God bless me. And God bless the one that I want to see.

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare is also a good example of euphony:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hat all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thow ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines ot Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.