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.
[4] Assonance occurs more often in verse than in prose; it is used in English-language poetry and is particularly important in Old French, Spanish, and the Celtic languages.
English poetry is rich with examples of assonance and/or consonance: That solitude which suits abstruser musingson a proud round cloud in white high nightHis tender heir might bear his memoryIt also occurs in prose: Soft language issued from their spitless lips as they swished in low circles round and round the field, winding hither and thither through the weeds.The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himself in the dark selvedge of the river bank.Hip hop relies on assonance: Some vodka that'll jumpstart my heart quicker than a shock when I get shocked at the hospital by the doctor when I'm not cooperating when I'm rocking the table when he's operating...Dead in the middle of little Italy little did we know that we riddled some middleman who didn't do diddly.It is also heard in other forms of popular music: I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and restlessI never seen so many Dominican women with cinnamon tansDot my I's with eyebrow pencils, close my eyelids, hide my eyes.
Think of nothing else but IAssonance is common in proverbs: The squeaky wheel gets the grease.The early bird catches the worm.Total assonance is found in a number of Pashto proverbs from Afghanistan: This poetic device can be found in the first line of Homer's Iliad: Mênin áeide, theá, Pēlēïádeō Akhilêos (Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος).
Such stanzas can be found in Italian or Portuguese poetry, in works by Giambattista Marino and Luís Vaz de Camões: This is ottava rima[9] (abababcc),[10] a very popular form in the Renaissance that was first used in epic poems.