Assonance – Literary terms

 

Assonance, Literary terms

Assonance – Literary terms

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Assonance:

The close repetition of middle vowel sounds between

different consonant sounds: fade/pale. Assonance is usually used within a line of POETRY for UNITY or rhythmic effect, as Edith Sitwell uses it in this line from "The Drum”:

Whinnying, neighed the maned blue wind Sitwell is famous for her experiments with carefully arranged assonant and dissonant vowels.

Assonance is sometimes used to create near rhymes in place of END RHYMES, FOLK BALLADS, which may have been hurriedly improvised, often rely on the near rhyme of assonance:

He had horses and harness for them all.

Their goodly steeds were all milk-white. O the golden bands all about their necks! Their weapons, they were all alike.

-from "Johnny Armstrong"

See

ALLITERATION,

CONSONANCE,

END RHYME.