Assonance Examples

“The railroad track is miles away,

And the day is loud with voices speaking,

Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day

But I hear its whistle shrieking.” – Edna St.Vincent Millay

A superficial glance at the above verse and you will know what this rhetorical device is all about. Assonance is more than just a figurative expression and often its implications stretch far beyond the literal connotation of the word. Just like any other literary device, assonance juxtaposes sounds and thoughts to enhance the soul and intricacies of expressions. To be clear-cut, assonance is a literary device that stresses vowel-sound-effects via repetition of vowel words for a rhythmic auditory effect when read aloud. Assonance is an integral part of rhythmic verse and is more common is poetry than in prose. Apart from English verses, the use of assonance can be widely traced in Spanish, Old French and Celtic languages. Unlike consonance that stresses on the usage of consonants for desired appeal, assonance purely bets on similar vowel sounds to produce a metrical effect. Go through these celebrated assonance examples and warm your hearts to their beauty and timbre.

Examples Of Assonance

Hear the mellow wedding bells - Edgar Allan Poe, “The Bells”
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn - William Wordsworth, “The world is too much with us”
The crumbling thunder of seas - Robert Louis Stevenson
That solitude which suits abstruser musings - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Dejection: An Ode”
And murmuring of innumerable bees - Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Princess VII.203
The scurrying furred small friars squeal in the dowse - Dylan Thomas
It’s hot and it’s monotonous. - Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George, “It’s Hot Up Here”
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness - John Keats
On a proud round cloud in white high night - E.E. Cummings, if a Cheer Rules Elephant Angel Child Should Sit
Dead in the middle of little Italy, little did we know that we riddled two middle men who didn't do diddily - Big Pun
Up in the arroyo a rare owl’s nest I did spy, so I loaded up my shotgun and watched owl feathers fly - Jon Wayne, Texas Assonance
Hear the mellow wedding bells - Edgar Allen Poe
Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dark fox gone to ground - Pink Floyd
Life it seems will fade away/ Drifting further every day/ Getting lost within myself/ Nothing matters, no one else – Metallica
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground. – David Bowie
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea. – W.B Yeats
Our flag is red, white, and blue - but our nation is rainbow. Red, yellow, brown, black, and white, we're all precious in God’s sight. - Jesse Jackson, 1984 Democratic National Convention Address
Let’s go kick the tires and light fires big daddy. - delivered by Harry Connick, Jr. (from the movie Independence Day)
In the brief span of thirty-odd years, the world has seen an inventors dream, first materialized by the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, become an everyday actuality. - Amelia Earhart
I feel the need, the need for speed. – Tom Cruise (Top Gun)
The gloves didn’t fit. If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit. - Johnny Cochran, Closing Arguments from the O.J. Simpson Trial
When Jesus told his disciples to pray for the kingdom, this was no pie in the sky by and by when you die kind of prayer. - Tony Campolo

Assonance is by far one of the most preferred rhetoric devices employed by the poets to accentuate the tone and feel of their verse. This compilation of assonance examples should let you know why.

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