This topic sheet was originally devised for the Verse Technique and Poetry course. There is a table of links to other teaching resources towards the bottom of this page.

ASSONANCE

Definition of assonance in the Shorter English Dictionary:

• Resemblance or correspondence of sound between two syllables (early 18th Century)
• The rhyming of one word with another in accented vowel and those that follow, but not in consonants or (less usually) in consonants but not in vowels (early 19th Century)
• Correspondence more or less incomplete (mid 19th Century)

The first part of the early 19th Century definition exactly fits the generally accepted modern definition of rhyme.

In PG's definition, assonance is simply the repetition of a particular sound or syllable in speech. Accordingly, assonance may be easily achieved without regard to metre.

RHYME

Rhyme, by contrast, is principally a metrical device, used to accentuate speech rhythms by creating sound patterns at (maybe) regular intervals. The early 19th Century definition of assonance (the rhyming of one word with another in accented vowel and those that follow, but not in consonants) accurately describes the technicalities of rhyme.

• SAMENESS AND DIFFERENCE
  
  In PG's words, rhyming sounds have a sameness and a difference:
  rhyming sounds match one another precisely in terms of vowel sounds and end consonants
  but are preceded by non-identical consonant sounds, if any. (At least one of the rhyming pair of syllables obviously must have a preceding consonant sound to make the requisite difference!)
  
  For example room and groom match precisely in the vowel sound oo and the end consonant m sound, while the contrasting r and gr sounds provide the difference that completes the rhyme.
  
  
• SOUND RATHER THAN SPELLING
  
  Note that PG's definition speaks in terms of sameness and difference in sound rather than spelling.
  
  For example, few does not rhyme with sew.
  
  Also, write does not rhyme with right: the sounds are identical and there can be no rhyme without some differentiation between the preceding consonant sounds.
  
  

SINGLE, DOUBLE AND TRIPLE RHYMES

Single syllable rhymes always fall on stressed syllables. Insofar as a foot consists of a stressed syllable and 0, 1 or 2 unstressed syllables, the rhyming syllable — the syllable that includes the sameness and the difference — gains prominence over non-rhyming feet by virtue of its calculated assonance, while its stress accentuates the rhythm of the metre of the piece.

Two-syllable rhymes consist of a single syllable rhyme followed by an unstressed syllable which sounds precisely the same in both rhyming words. In other words, the difference occurs at the beginning of the stressed syllable, while the following sounds are identical. For example, only the opening consonants sound different in water and daughter. The vowel part of the stressed syllables (the a in water and the augh in daughter) and the whole of the unstressed syllables (both vowels and consonants — the ter sound in both words) are identical.

Three-syllable rhymes follow the same principle as two-syllable rhymes, except that the stressed rhyming syllable is followed by two unstressed syllables which sound the same in both rhyming words: for example sensible and ostensible.

There are very few words capable of sustaining a four-syllable rhyme, for the simple reason that any third unstressed syllable tends to become a foot in its own right.

For example seriousness rhymes with imperiousness if the last three syllables of each word remain unstressed. However, if the ness syllables become stressed, the invention is reduced to a mere three-syllable rhyme between serious and imperious. Strictly speaking, the ness syllables, if stressed, are not part of the rhyme.

HIDDEN RHYMES

Since rhymes enhance sound rather than sense, they need not necessarily correspond with word endings. All the above examples are whole word rhymes, in the sense that any unstressed syllables at the end of the word are identical and therefore part of the rhyme. Rhyming verse poets have generally confined themselves to whole word rhymes.

However PG urges participants to experiment with hidden rhymes: rhymes that occur within a word or that span two or more words. Hidden rhymes may be single, double or triple rhymes in just the same way as whole word rhymes. For example:

• month rhymes with the first syllable of unthinking (as long as the th sound of unthinking sounds as if it is part of the first syllable);
• tipper rhymes with the first two syllables of frippery;
• "Jeremy fell upon thieves in the Peloponnese" contains an attractive three-syllable, 'hidden' rhyme, while the concluding (more or less) assonant pair, nese and thieves, extends the sound-play.

Hidden rhymes are particularly useful for writers who dislike the sound of excessively stressed rhymes but recognise the intellectual challenge of rhyming and the enhanced sound quality of gentle rhythmic assonance. Whereas readers often give undue prominence to whole word rhymes, they cannot easily identify the hidden rhymes on the printed page and must therefore allow such rhymes to work for themselves.