Read the following passage and answer the questions that follows:
Poetry in its use of language continually distorts and denies the structure of reality to exalt the structure of the selF) By means of rhyme, assonance or alliteration it couples together words which have no rational connection, that is, no nexus through the world of external reality. It breaks the word up into lines of arbitrary length, cutting across their logical construction. It breaks down their associations, derived from the world of external reality, by means of inversion and every variety of artificial stressing and counterpoint. Thus the world of external reality recedes and the world of instinct, the affective emotional linkage behind the words, becomes the world of reality… In the novel, too, the subjective elements are valued for themselves, and rise to view, but in a different way. The novel blots out external reality by substituting a more or less consistent mock reality which has sufficient ‘stuff’ to stand between the reader and reality. This means that in the novel the emotional associations attach not to words but to the moving current of mock reality symbolised by the words. This is why rhythm, ‘preciousness’, and style are alien to the novel; why the novel translates so well; why novels are not composed of words. They are composed of scenes, actions, stuff, people, just as plays arE)

What does the word “assonance” mean?