What does assonance mean?

Assonance is a literary term that describes the repetition of sounds in words that do not rhyme. Assonance is very effective in: 1) Making a phrase memorable. The catchphrase 'nice as pie' is easy to remember because both words share the sound of a long i. An alternative 'nice as cake' conveys the same meaning but, because there is no assonance, the phrase does not have the same memorability. 2) Drawing parallels between words. In Dylan Thomas' Ballad of the Long Legged Bait, assonance is used to compare two unalike thingsDeep the great bushed bait with raining lipsSlipped the fins of those humpbacked tons.'Lips' and 'fins' are are unalike, and that comparison is made with greater impact with assonance highlighting their sonic similarity.3) creating cohesionThe continual use of the long i sound in Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn creates cohesion.Thou still unravished bride of quietness,Thou foster child of silence and slow time'Bride' 'quiet' 'child' 'silence' and 'time' all share the long i, which creates a uniformity of sound that can represent silence even in sound. The assonance here is used to represent the very thing Keats describes.4) linking phrases together.Using Swinburne's August, it becomes clear that assonance can be used to associate certain words with each other.The colour of the leaves was moreLike stems of yellow corn that growThe repetition of the short o sound links 'colour' 'yellow' and 'grow' together, while the sound of the long o links 'more' and 'corn'. Having these two paralleling sets of sounds creates a more complicated sound while maintaining coherence.Assonance emphasises words and their relationship to each other.