Assonance Examples: Definition and Examples in Literature and Poetry
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words. It's subtler than rhyme — the words don't have to end the same way — but it creates the same feeling of musical cohesion. Poetry relies on it constantly, often without the reader consciously noticing. Good prose writers use it too: the difference between a sentence that sounds right and one that doesn't is often a matter of whether the vowels are working together or against each other.
Assonance
Repeated vowel sounds in the middle of nearby words.
"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain." (long "a")
Consonance
Repeated consonant sounds in the middle or end of nearby words.
"The black-backed jackdaw." (repeated "ck" sounds)
Alliteration
Repeated consonant sounds at the start of nearby words.
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
Rhyme
Matching end sounds — both the vowel and any following consonants.
"moon" / "soon" — assonance would be "moon" / "loose" (same vowel, different ending)
Assonance Examples in Poetry
The best way to understand assonance is to hear it. These eight examples identify the specific vowel sound being repeated and explain what effect it creates — because assonance is not merely decorative. Different vowel sounds have different qualities: long vowels slow the pace, short vowels speed it up, open sounds expand, closed sounds constrict.
Edgar Allan Poe — "The Raven" (1845)
"And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain... Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary..."
Long "e" and "ur" sounds throughout
Poe was obsessed with sound and wrote extensively about his technique. The long "e" in "dreary," "weary," "nearer," "Lenore," and the repeated "nevermore" creates an aching, mournful drone. The sound enacts the grief — the vowel itself becomes the sound of mourning.
John Keats — "To Autumn" (1819)
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun..."
Slow, open vowels: "mists," "mellow," "close," "bosom"
Keats fills the poem with slow, rounded vowels that physically slow the reader's pace — mimicking the sluggish warmth of harvest season. The assonance is inseparable from the poem's argument: the sounds make you feel the heaviness of ripeness.
Emily Dickinson — "Because I could not stop for Death" (1890)
"We passed the school where children played, / Their lessons scarcely done— / We passed the fields of gazing grain, / We passed the setting sun—"
Short "a" sounds: "passed," "scarcely," "gazing," "grain"
Dickinson's assonance here creates a hypnotic quality — the repeated short "a" sounds link the passing of landscapes with the passing of time, of life. The sound becomes the rhythm of a journey that cannot be reversed.
Wilfred Owen — "Dulce et Decorum Est" (1920)
"In all my dreams before my helpless sight / He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning."
Short, brutal vowels: "guttering," "choking," "drowning"
Owen uses short, closed vowels in the poem's most visceral moments. The sounds are constricted, ugly — the opposite of the long open vowels of beauty or peace. The assonance creates revulsion physically, through the reader's mouth. Sound becomes argument.
William Shakespeare — Sonnet 73
"That time of year thou mayst in me behold / When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang / Upon those boughs which shake against the cold..."
Long "o" sounds: "behold," "those," "cold," "boughs"
Shakespeare's long "o" sounds in the autumn imagery create a low, resonant moan beneath the imagery — the sound of late autumn itself. The assonance gives the poem's meditation on aging a physical melancholy that pure meaning cannot produce alone.
Gerard Manley Hopkins — "The Windhover" (1877)
"I caught this morning morning's minion, king- / dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon..."
Short "i" sounds throughout: "minion," "kingdom," "dauphin"
Hopkins uses assonance alongside alliteration and sprung rhythm to create a kind of sustained musical pressure. The repeated short "i" sounds have a lightness and quickness that matches the falcon's movement — sound as visual description.
Seamus Heaney — "Digging" (1966)
"Under my window, a clean rasping sound / When the spade sinks into gravelly ground..."
Short "a" in "rasping," "spade," "gravelly," "sand"
Heaney's assonance is physical — the short "a" sounds mimic the scrape of a spade. His poetry consistently uses sound to invoke bodily sensation. The assonance here doesn't ornament the meaning; it is part of the meaning.
Dylan Thomas — "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" (1951)
"Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day..."
Long "o" sounds: "go," "old," "know," "close," "flow"
The long "o" sound recurs throughout this villanelle like a low groan of protest. It gives the poem its elegiac weight and its refusal to be consoled. The assonance makes the sound of the poem itself an act of resistance.
Assonance Examples in Prose
Prose writers rarely discuss assonance explicitly, but the best prose writers use it instinctively — or deliberately, as in Nabokov's case. The effect in prose is subtler than in poetry because the line breaks aren't there to make the sound patterns visible. But the music is present, and readers feel it even when they can't name it.
Vladimir Nabokov — Lolita (1955)
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins."
The long "i" sound in "light," "life," "fire," and "loins" is not accidental — Nabokov was a lepidopterist who applied scientific precision to prose music. The assonance makes the opening incantatory, seductive, insidious. It sounds beautiful before you understand what it is.
Cormac McCarthy — The Road (2006)
"Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before."
McCarthy's long "a" sounds in "gray," "days," "gray," and "late" slow the prose to a trudge. He uses assonance throughout The Road to create a sonic desolation that matches the visual one — the sounds are as bleak as the landscape.
Ernest Hemingway — A Farewell to Arms (1929)
"We ate the cheese and drank the wine and looked at the country."
Hemingway's short "e" sounds and open vowels create a flatness that is itself expressive — the sound of exhausted simplicity, of experience stripped of the language that would make it bearable. Assonance in Hemingway is the sound of restraint.
Toni Morrison — Beloved (1987)
"She is trying to make me look at her but I can't, I can't do it anymore."
Morrison's prose music is inseparable from its meaning. The short "i" sounds in "is," "trying," "it," "into" create a contracted, constricted feeling — the sound of a mind trying not to break. She uses sound patterns to create the texture of trauma.
F. Scott Fitzgerald — The Great Gatsby (1925)
"In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."
Fitzgerald's long vowels and open sounds in "blue," "came," "whisperings," "champagne," "stars" give the sentence a dreamy, floating quality. The assonance enacts the glamour — you hear the parties before you see them.
Assonance vs Consonance
Assonance and consonance are both forms of sound repetition in the middle or end of words (as opposed to alliteration, which operates at the start). The distinction is simple: assonance repeats vowel sounds, consonance repeats consonant sounds. In practice they often work together.
Assonance — Vowel Sounds
The repetition is in the vowel — the words can end differently.
"fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese" — long "e"
"go slow over the stone road" — long "o"
"light of my life, fire of my loins" — long "i"
Consonance — Consonant Sounds
The repetition is in the consonant — the vowels can differ.
"blessed are the blind" — repeated "bl"
"sick, suckling, surfeited" — repeated "s"
"whistle, whisper, whirl" — repeated "wh"
How to Use Assonance in Your Writing
Use long vowels for slow, heavy, or melancholy moments
Long vowels take more time to produce — they physically slow the reader's pace. When you want a passage to feel heavy, mournful, or languorous, lean into long vowels: "o," "a," "e." Keats's "To Autumn," Poe's "The Raven," Dylan Thomas's villanelle all use long vowels to create weight. The sound becomes the feeling.
Use short vowels for speed, tension, or urgency
Short vowels are quick, clipped, and energetic. "Guttering, choking, drowning" — Owen's short vowels in the poem's most violent moment create a breathless, constricted panic. Action sequences, moments of fear, or sharp revelations often benefit from short vowel clusters that push the reader through the prose faster.
Read aloud to catch unintentional assonance
Assonance can be distracting when it's accidental — when vowel sounds cluster in a way that draws attention to the sound rather than the meaning. Reading your work aloud is the only reliable way to hear these patterns. If a sentence makes you stumble or sounds oddly sing-song, check for unintended vowel repetition. Not all assonance is intentional; not all of it is helpful.
Use it at emotional peaks
Like all sound devices, assonance should be concentrated at the moments that matter most. A line that needs to land — the final line of a poem, the key image in a scene, the sentence the reader should take with them — benefits from deliberate sound work. When the sounds and the meaning reinforce each other, the effect is greater than either could achieve alone. Save your best sound work for your best moments.
Write Prose That Sounds as Good as It Reads
Sound devices like assonance only become natural through extensive practice — through reading widely and writing regularly until your ear develops its own instincts. Hearth's distraction-free editor helps you build the daily writing habit that makes your sentences sing.
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