Assonance

    Assonance (asonancia or rima asonante) is a type of rhyme where only the vowels “rhyme” or are similar-
    sounding; consonants are ignored. The same as with perfect rhyme, assonantal rhyme begins with the last
    stressed vowel of a line of poetry, and may consist of either one or two syllables, depending on whether or not
    the last stressed vowel is the final syllable in the line. In Spanish, two-syllable rhyme is called “feminine”; one-
    syllable rhyme is termed “masculine”.

    Masculine assonance (asonancia masculina): This is one-syllable rhyme; that is, the rhyme words are stressed on
    the last syllable and thus the rhyme involves only the last vowel (remember, consonants are ignored). Examples
    of words which share the same masculine assonance:       campeador    (the last syllable in all 3 words has a
    stressed o)
     Carrión assonance in ó
     habló  


    Feminine assonance (asonancia feminina): This is two-syllable rhyme, where the rhyme words are stressed on
    the next-to-last syllable and have two parallel vowels (a stressed vowel plus an unstressed one; consonants are
    ignored). Examples of words with the same feminine assonance:       muerta    (in each word the last two syllablic
    vowels are first astressed e and then an unstressed a)
     penas assonance in e-a
     golpean  


    Originally, assonance was found at the end of long lines of poetry, and the line had a pause or break in the
    middle of it called a caesura (cesura). The following example is assonance in í-a, in long-line form.
          ¡Merced, ya Cid, barba tan cumplida!   assonance in í-a (found at the end of each long line)
    Fem' ante vos, vuestras fijas
    ifantes son e de días chicas.


    More frequently, however, Spanish poetry is displayed on the written page not as a series of long lines with a
    caesura but rather as short lines; in this case assonance typically occurs in the even numbered lines (los versos
    pares). Thus the same three full-lines given above could be written:       ¡Merced, ya Cid,   assonance in í-a
    (found at the end of every other verse in a series of short lines)
    barba tan cumplida!
    Fem' ante vos,
    vuestras fijas
    ifantes son
    e de días chicas.


    Poetry is typically divided up into stanzas (estrofas). If assonance is used in a poem instead of perfect rhyme,
    frequently there are no stanzas at all. Instead, the poem is composed of one or more tiradas. A tirada is series
    of verses using the same assonance; it may contain any number of lines, from four to several hundred. However,
    in more literary works the poet may divide the poem into stanzas, often of four lines each.
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