Título de la obra:
Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth centuries,
vol. 1
Consonant and assonant Rhymes
The Castilian language is rich in perfect rhymes. But in their lighter poetry the Spaniards frequently contented themselves with assonances, that is, with the correspondence of final syllables, where in the vowel alone was the same, though with different consonants, as
duro
and
humo,
and
boca
and
cosa.
These were often intermingled with perfect or consonant rhymes. In themselves, unsatisfactory as they may seem at first sight to
our
prejudices, there can be no doubt but that the assonances contained a
musical
principle and would soon give pleasure to and be required by the ear. They may be compared to the alliteration so common in the
northern
poetry, and which constitutes almost the whole regularity of some of our oldest poems. But though assonances may seem to us an indication of a rude stage of poetry, it is remarkable that they belong chiefly to the later period of
Castilian
lyric
poetry, and that consonant rhymes, frequently with the recurrence of the same syllable, are reckoned, if I mistake not, a presumption of the antiquity of a romance