Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia (adjective onomatopoeic) is the use of words to imitate the sounds they are describing. Wods like 'Boom!' and 'Crash' are everyday examples, as is the child's word, 'Nee-naw', trying to imitate the sound of its siren. Advertisers often appeal to onomatopoeia: "Snap, crackle, pop' is a slogan based on the sound of a cereal reacting to milk. Comic strips adn garphic novels oftern invent new words to communicate the sounds of their scenes, often the vilent sounds: 'Ker-pow!' and 'Zap' are examples.

Poets often use onomatopoeia.

The quotation just given, followed by “the monstrous anger of the guns”, is an example of more than alliteration: it is also an example of Owen was trying to say what a battlefield of the first World War sounded like; in my view, he is remarkably successful in distinguishing between the deep, dull boom of heavy artillery (“monstrous anger of the guns”) and the crisper, sharper crackling of the ordinary soldiers’ rifles.