Editing Assonance (section)

{{short description|Repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming}}
{{for|the Czech folk band|Asonance}}
'''Assonance''' is the repetition of identical or similar [[phoneme]]s 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 '').<ref>''Chambers 21st Century Dictionary'' (1996).</ref> However, in [[Comparison of American and British English|American usage]], ''assonance'' exclusively refers to this phenomenon when affecting vowels, whereas, when affecting consonants, it is generally called [[Literary consonance|''consonance'']].<ref>Merriam-Webster [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consonance consonance].</ref> 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<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/art/assonance Assonance at Enciclopaedia Britannica]</ref> (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 ''log'' or ''history'' and ''mystery''. Vocalic assonance is an important element in [[Poetry|verse]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://outstandingwriting.com/assonance-and-consonance/ |title=Khurana, Ajeet "Assonance and Consonance" Outstanding Writing |access-date=2011-03-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110316082852/http://outstandingwriting.com/assonance-and-consonance/ |archive-date=2011-03-16 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Assonance occurs more often in verse than in [[prose]]; it is used in English-language poetry and is particularly important in [[Old French]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], and the [[Celtic languages]].

Put another way, assonance is a rhyme, the identity of which depends merely on the [[vowel]] sounds. Thus, an assonance is merely a [[Syllabic verse|syllabic]] resemblance. For example, in [[W. B. Yeats]] poem, [[The Wild Swans at Coole (poem)]], Yeats rhymes the word ''swan'' with the word ''stone'', thus assonance.