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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.
Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example: AH0 TH IY1 N AH0 = a-THEE-na (Athena)
The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.
Quick Definition
The stress or emphasis placed on a syllable in spoken language or metrical verse, crucial for establishing poetic rhythm and meter.
Explore this topic in depth (3)
How to Scan a Poem
— Scansion is the practice of listening closely to a poem’s rhythm and marking its pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. It is not a way of forcing every line into a formula, but a method for hearing how regularity, variation and natural speech work together.
How to Read Poetry Aloud
— Reading poetry aloud is not about sounding theatrical. It is a way of listening more closely to how sentences, lines, rhythms, sounds and silences work together.
Ballad
— Ballads tell memorable stories in a compact, musical form. Rooted in oral tradition but endlessly reshaped on the printed page, they use rhythm, repetition and dramatic scenes to make narratives travel.
Detailed Definition
Accent in poetry refers to the emphasis or stress placed on a particular syllable within a word or line, forming the basis of English metrical systems like iambic or trochaic; it governs rhythm and can shift meaning, as in the difference between the noun “record” (RE-cord) and verb “record” (re-CORD).
Example
Example in poetry:
Accent refers to the stressed syllable in a word or line; in “beLIEve,” the accent falls on the second syllable, and in poetry, accents shape meter, as in the stressed “DUM” of “DUM-da” in iambic rhythm.
Additional Notes
Stress on syllable. Can be lexical (word stress) or metrical (pattern stress). Foundation of accentual and accentual-syllabic verse. Mark with ´ symbol. Contrast: quantity (syllable length).