Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar phonemes in words or syllables that occur close together, either in terms of their vowel phonemes (e.g., lean green meat) or their consonant phonemes (e.g., Kip keeps capes ).[1] However, in American usage, assonance exclusively refers to this phenomenon when affecting vowels, whereas, when affecting consonants, it is generally called consonance.[2] The two types are often combined, as between the words six and switch, which contain the same vowel and similar consonants. If there is repetition of the same vowel or some similar vowels in literary work, especially in stressed syllables, this may be termed "vowel harmony" in poetry[3] (though linguists have a different definition of "vowel harmony").
A special case of assonance is rhyme, in which the endings of words (generally beginning with the vowel sound of the last stressed syllable) are identical—as in fog and logorhistory and mystery. Vocalic assonance is an important element in verse.[4] Assonance occurs more often in verse than in prose; it is used in English-language poetry and is particularly important in Old French, Spanish, and the Celtic languages.
English poetry is rich with examples of assonance and/or consonance:
That solitude which suits abstruser musings
on a proud round cloud in white high night
— E. E. Cummings, if a cheerfulest Elephantangelchild should sit
His tender heir might bear his memory
It also occurs in prose:
Soft language issued from their spitless lips as they swished in low circles round and round the field, winding hither and thither through the weeds.
The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himselfin the dark selvedge of the river bank.
Hip hop relies on assonance:
Some vodka that'll jumpstart my heart quicker than a shock when I get shocked at the hospital by the doctor when I'm not cooperating when I'm rocking the table when he's operating...
— Eminem, "Without Me"
Dead in the middle of little Italy little did we know that we riddled some middleman who didn't do diddly.
— Big Pun, "Twinz"
It is also heard in other forms of popular music:
I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and restless
— Thin Lizzy, "With Love"
I never seen so many Dominican women with cinnamon tans
— Will Smith, "Miami"
Dot my I's with eyebrow pencils, close my eyelids, hide my eyes. I'll be idle in my ideals. Think of nothing else but I
— Keaton Henson, "Small Hands"
Assonance is common in proverbs:
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The early bird catches the worm.
Total assonance is found in a number of Pashto proverbs from Afghanistan:
This poetic device can be found in the first line of Homer's Iliad: Mênin áeide, theá, Pēlēïádeō Akhilêos (Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος). Another example is Dies irae (probably by Thomas of Celano):
InDante's Divine Comedy there are some stanzas with such repetition.
In the following strophe from Hart Crane's "To Brooklyn Bridge" there is the vowel [i] in many stressed syllables.
All rhymes in a strophe can be linked by vowel harmony into one assonance. Such stanzas can be found in Italian or Portuguese poetry, in works by Giambattista Marino and Luís Vaz de Camões:
This is ottava rima[9] (abababcc),[10] a very popular form in the Renaissance that was first used in epic poems.
There are many examples of vowel harmony in French,[12] Czech,[13] and Polish[14] poetry.