Assonance and consonant rhyme: differences
Rhyme is a linguistic device widely used by poets with the aim of giving greater beauty and stylistic and sound expression to their compositions. The rhyme consists of matching vowel or consonant sounds at the end of each of the verses of a poem, so that, if they are read aloud, they possess a special and characteristic sound that distinguishes them from the rest of literary compositions written in prose.
In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to see what the differences between assonance rhyme and consonant rhyme, the two main types of rhyme in Spanish.
The assonance rhyme is the rhyme in which only the vowel sounds at the end of the syllable match; that is, the vowels of the last syllable of the verse rhyme. So that you can understand it better, here is an example of a poem by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Look at the vowels of the last syllable of each verse:
Where do I come from... The most horrible and harsh
of the trails he seeks;
the prints of bloody feet
on the hard rock,
the spoils of a tattered soul
in sharp brambles,
they will tell you the way
leading to my crib.
Where I go? The bleakest and saddest
from the moors he crosses,
valley of eternal snows and eternal melancholic mists.
Where is a lonely stone
without any inscription,
where oblivion dwells,
there will be my grave.
In this other lesson from a TEACHER we explain in detail what is assonance rhyme with examples.
The rhyme It is the other type of rhyme most used and recurrent in Spanish poetry. The consonant rhyme consists of match all the sounds of the last syllable of each verse; that is, both the vowels and the consonants of the entire syllable rhyme.
Next, we show you a poem by Amado Nervo as consonant rhyme example in Spanish. Pay attention to the last syllables of the verses:
Cause I see at the end of my rough road
that I was the architect of my own destiny;
that if I extracted the honeys or the gall of things,
it was because in it I put gall and tasty honeys.
In this other lesson we discover you what is consonant rhyme with examples.
Once the concepts are clear, we are going to study the differences between assonance rhyme and consonant rhyme:
- As we have said before, the assonance rhyme (or partial rhyme) is the one that occurs when the vowels of the last syllable of the verse rhyme. Thus, words like "child", "wine" or "alive" would be words that would have in common an assonance rhyme, since they share the vowels "i" and "o", as well as the words "red" or "gold", in whose last syllable the vowel "o" is repeated in two occasions.
- It is important to note that in assonance rhyme, since it is only necessary for the vowels to rhyme, the intermediate consonants can vary in multiple ways and forms.
- For its part, the consonant rhyme (or total rhyme) not only makes the vowels rhyme with each other but what rhymes is the entire syllable, including vowels and consonants, so that, following the consonant rhyme, words such as "house", "passes" or "rasa" could rhyme with each other and also "ground", "wakefulness" or "longing", among others many.
Now that you know the differences between assonance and consonant rhyme, we believe that it is recommended that you know what all the types of rhyme that exist in a poem. You have to know that the two studied are the most classic and, therefore, the best known. However, there is more. Therefore, here we offer you a list of the most common types of rhyme within a composition:
- Rhyme: as we have already said, in this type of rhyme both the vowels and the consonants of a poem coincide
- Assonant: it is the type of rhyme in which only the vowels coincide, therefore, the consonants can be different
- Rhyme white or free: this type of poem is characterized by not containing rhyme, therefore, neither vowels nor consonants should coincide
- Semi-detached: in this type of rhyme, what should be rhymed are the first two rhymes
- Alternate rhyme: is when the first rhyme must agree with the third and, thus, successively
- Crusade: the verses tend to rhyme crosswise, that is, the first verse with the last and those in the middle must rhyme with each other
- Chained rhyme: it is a type of rhyme that intertwines during the different stanzas
