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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
Juxtaposition of neighboring textual elements to highlight similarity or difference without explicit linkage
Explore this topic in depth (3)
Modernism
— Modernist poetry is not one fixed style but a wide field of experiments in language, rhythm, perspective and form. This guide explores the historical pressures behind those experiments and offers practical ways to read—and hear—poems that may initially seem difficult.
Tanka
— Tanka is a short Japanese poem traditionally patterned 5–7–5–7–7, though its units are morae rather than English syllables. Its small scale can hold a striking movement: from scene to feeling, statement to response, or one image to another.
Imagism
— Imagism was an early twentieth-century Anglo-American poetic movement that made clarity, compression and musical rhythm into a programme. Its poems ask readers to attend closely: a few concrete details, carefully arranged, can carry perception, feeling and thought.
Detailed Definition
Adjacent comparison is a poetic technique where two closely positioned images, ideas, or entities are juxtaposed to highlight similarities or provoke interpretive connections without explicit linking words; this proximity encourages readers to infer relationships through spatial contiguity rather than direct analogy, as seen in haiku where a natural image placed beside a human emotion subtly equates the two through shared context or mood.
Example
Example in poetry:
In "The Waste Land," Eliot places "April is the cruellest month" next to "breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land," contrasting renewal with decay; In haiku, a frog jumping into a pond appears beside still water, highlighting motion against stillness; Dickinson’s "Hope is the thing with feathers" follows "That perches in the soul," placing abstract hope next to a concrete bird image; In "Ozymandias," Shelley juxtaposes "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" with "Nothing beside remains," setting boastful pride against utter ruin
Additional Notes
Adjacent comparison relies on proximity rather than explicit connectors like "like" or "as"; it’s common in imagist poetry and haiku where juxtaposition implies meaning; effective when the two elements share subtle thematic or sensory links; avoid if the connection is too obscure for readers