Home › Glossary › Letter A

Aesthetic distance

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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 emotional and psychological space between reader and poetic subject matter

Detailed Definition
The deliberate creation of detachment or removal from the immediate emotional impact of a poem's content, allowing for more objective contemplation and artistic appreciation rather than direct emotional involvement
Example
Example in poetry:
Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” maintains aesthetic distance through ekphrasis; aesthetic distance in Wallace Stevens’s “The Snow Man” avoids personal emotion; Brechtian alienation in Bertolt Brecht’s “Verfremdungseffekt” poems; aesthetic distance allows critical reflection by minimizing emotional identification
Additional Notes
Two acrostics in one poem—typically reading down AND up, or left AND right margins. Rare, highly constrained form. Demonstrates virtuosity. Often puzzle-like.
Other Meanings of “Aesthetic distance”
Also Known As
psychic distance artistic detachment
Skip to main content