What is the difference between assonance and rhyme?
Rhyme is when the two words have 100% fit; assonance is when they sound quite similar but not actually the same. So the effect of assonance is somewhat softer. If you take the following middle verse – from a poem in memory of a daughter killed in her prime, as it happens: ‘Like us they have their rituals, and in their memory we pray; Our tabernacles emptied, candles darkened, but only for one day. At midnight we will pass the light from hand to hand in peace; The liturgy has mercy; it asks no more than we can bear; Not this endless quest through beauty asking when fear will turn to grief.’ Here you have a direct rhyme between ‘day’ and ‘pray,’ and an internal rhyme between ‘midnight’ and ‘light’, but you also have assonance between ‘liturgy’ and ‘mercy’ and between ‘fear’ and ‘grief.’ The effect of the softer assonances is to make more gentle the effect of what’s being said while still preserving the poetic form (poetry, someone defined it, as ‘the right words in the right order). Hope
