Rhymes (Assonance and Blank Verse)

"Curiousity killed the cat.
Satisfaction brought him back." -Anon.

Even though "cat" and "back" do not make a true rhyming combination, they sound similar enough to create the same effect. When you use an unlike, yet very similar sounding word to complete a rhyme, it is called ASSONANCE.

Shakespeare used assonance heavily in his work. Read the following sonnet and notice how he uses assonance:

Sonnet #12

When I do count the clock that tell the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes og time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

Poetry doesn't have to rhyme to be poetry. Nonrhyming poetry is refered to as a BLANK VERSE. A famous blank verse is from the final soliloquy in Dr. Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe:

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike.
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
Oh, I'll leap up to my God: who pulls me down?
See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament.
One drop would save my soul, half a drop. Ah, my Christ!
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!
Yet wil I call on him. Oh, spare me, Lucifer!
Where is it now? 'Tis gone:
And see where God stretches out his arms,
And bends his ireful brows.
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God.
No, no. The will I headlong run into the earth.
Earth, gape! Oh no, it will not harbor me.
You stars that reigned at my nativity,
Whose influences hath alloted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon laboring cloud,
That when you vomit forth into the air
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven...
(act 5, scene 2)

For practice, write a couplet using assonance and if you feel intrepid enough, write a short blank verse.

Return to Lesson Menu.