What is assonance?
Assonance is one of devices, specifically a sound device, which is used to reinforce effects brought up by rhetorical writings. To give a specific definition of it, assonance is a repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences. Since it takes part in making rhymes, it is much more suitable to verse, rather than prose. Nowadays, assonance frequently appears in modern raps and hip-hop musics, and it is the one that make us say, "What a great rhyme!"
What effects does assonance give?
There are basically two main effects that assonance possesses in rhetorical writings. Initially, it emphasizes a topic by making sentences or phrases much easier and catchier to comprehend. Not only this, but assonance also creates echo and afterimage of readers by which contents can be imprinted to them much more effectively. This can be explained by the excitement and the concentration that we feel while listening to raps and hip-hop musics. Hence, it seems that assonance spurs human's intrinsic instinct to react to consecutive and regular sounds, in order to maximize its effects.
Examples of assonance
The silken sad uncertain
rustling of each purple certain.
- Edgar Allan Poe, 『The Raven』
☞ Continual 'er [3:r] ' sound creates rhyme.
That solitude which
suits abstruser musings.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 『Frost at Midnight』
☞ Continual 'u [u:]' sound creates rhyme.
Hes evil, and I'm bad like Steve Seagal. Above the law cause I don't agree with police either. Shit me neither. We ain't eager to be legal, so please, leave, me, with the keys to your Jeep-Eagle. I breathe either in three lethal amounts, while I stab myself in the knee with a diseased needle.
- Eminem, 『Bad Meets Evil』
☞ Continual 'ee [i:]' sound creates rhyme.
Related terms
Alliteration: repetition of a particular sound in the stressed
syllables of a serious of words or phrases
Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds
For those who would like to feel what 'REAL assonance' is:
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